


First Impressions

by beetle



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Dragons, Alternate Universe - Future, Alternate Universe - Harry Potter Setting, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, And kind of a jerk, Blow Jobs, Boys In Love, Buffy the Vampire Slayer - Freeform, Dubious Consent, F/F, F/M, First Kiss, First Time, Harry Potter - Freeform, Harry Potter is a Badass, M/M, Mpreg, Rimming, Soulmates, Young Tom Riddle, but he has reasons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-02
Updated: 2014-01-01
Packaged: 2017-12-07 07:33:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 32
Words: 158,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/745942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beetle/pseuds/beetle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Xander's terminal foot-in-mouth disease initiates a chance meeting in Bucharest that changes his life forever. Set post-Chosen by ten years, and post DH/e by ten years. Spoilers for BtVS “Chosen” and DH/e. The first chapter is in second person, because of a challenge, but the rest is alternating third person-POVs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. First Impressions

**Author's Note:**

> Notes/Warnings: Mpreg, mentions of past dub-con. Major character death, but . . . this fic is part BtVS. Does anyone REALLY stay dead?

_"Eu doresc la serviciu al tău animal şi al tău sorăs,"_  you say.  
  
Since arriving in Romania, you've received many and varied responses to your pitiful attempts at charming the locals.  
  
However the response to  _this_  halting and ill-thought out flirtation quickly proves you've reached an all time low. Before you can pull the phrase book out of your pocket to try and puzzle out what you've just said, the barmaid slams your beer down hard. Half of it sloshes onto your table and lap and she swishes off with one last withering glance for you.  
  
You barely notice the glance in favor of blotting at your damp, beery crotch with a handkerchief that's seen better days. But you know well enough not to order another beer at this cafe, and to steer clear of the food.  
  
Speaking of, Romanian beer is much darker than the American swill you're used to. It smells earthy and yeasty, and stings when it gets into angry, still-puffy scratches on your left hand--just because you  _can_  trade your water-proof Seiko for a live rooster, no matter how cute, doesn't mean you  _should_  . . . an object lesson you've learned well--souvenirs of your first foray into the Obor Market.  
  
As foreign cities go--and really, those are the only cities you ever spend any time in, any more--Bucharest is by far not the worst. The worst would have to be Burnie, Tasmania. But mostly because of the zombie insurgence, and the laborious clean-up/cover-up afterwards. Other than that, the scenery had been pretty and the locals genuinely nice. . . .  
  
"Is that really your best chat-up line, mate?"  
  
At the sound of English-- _English_  English--your head whips around so fast, you nearly topple out of your chair.   
  
Sitting at the table just behind yours is a square-faced man in faded blue jeans and a button-down workshirt. He has the relaxed air of a man who's been sitting for hours, watching tourists and Romanians go by.  
  
Besides you, he's the only patron at this cafe sitting alone.   
  
"Not anymore, it's not," you reply with heartfelt rue, swiping the hankie over your crotch one last futile time before shoving it in your pocket. "I'm thinking I didn't assure her that I'm a fine young man of good social standing and impeccable lineage?"   
  
The pale stranger--he's sitting half in a patch of late afternoon sunlight, or else alarm bells would, indeed, be ringing--smiles. Well, his lips twitch upward a bit and in your unexacting book that's close enough.   
  
"Erm, no.” Another lip-twitch. “You flew a bit off the mark."   
  
"A bit? Do I even wanna know what I said to her?"  
  
"Probably not."  
  
You sigh, angling your chair a little so you can talk to the guy without straining your neck, but not so much that he can't opt out of the conversation if he chooses. He's brawny, mid thirties . . . fah- _laming_  red hair so vivid, you have to fight the urge to squint. But there's relief from such an unexpected red in the mild brown eyes not too far below it.  
  
"So . . . ." As ice-breakers go, it's lame, but this is the first time in a long time you've been reduced to awkwardly starting conversations with kindly strangers just because you miss the sound of a voice speaking in English. It makes you think words like _safety_  and  _home_ , things you've not even been on passing acquaintance with for some time. “You're from England, right? Any place I'd know?”  
  
“Ottery St. Catchpole.”  
  
You let your eyebrows do the talking. And they say “whuh?”  
  
“I take it you don't know Devon.”  
  
You've passed through it a few times, always on your way to other places. All you remember of Devon is small pleasant towns and smiling, open-faced people. Kind of like Tasmania, but with fewer zombies.   
  
“Not well,” you admit with a grin that, until recently, made you look like a crazed pirate. Now, it merely makes you look daffy and adorable. Not that you've stood in front of the mirror mugging till your face nearly cracked, trying to remember how to incorporate _two_  eyes into a smile that reaches neither. . . .  
  
You must be doing  _something_  right, though. The guy is nodding encouragingly. But he could just be too laid-back to say 'sod-off, crazy'.  
  
“May I ask what brings an Englishman to Romania? And if the answer is, you were sent here by your employer to consult on a property transaction for a mysterious Transylvanian count. . . .”  
  
That twitch again, and it's immediately hidden behind his pint for a moment. “Animal husbandry, actually. It's how I make my living,” he adds after another thoughtful swallow. "You're also not from around here."  
  
It's not a question, so much as a change of subject. You file this bit of info away for later consideration--what  _you_  do for a living--and hold up your hands in surrender. "You've seen through my clever ruse. What gave it away?"  
  
One red eyebrow doesn't so much shoot up, as convey a general air of shootiness, what with the not-moving-one-iota and all. "Other than your generous offer to service Ana's livestock and sisters, you mean?”  
  
Ah. You make a mental note to throw out the phrase book.  
  
“Tou- and -che, my multi-lingual friend.” You would blush if this was the first time you'd made  _that_  particular social gaffe. The sad fact is, it's not, and you've learned to soldier on through the shame. “One day, I'm gonna waltz into a strange city, sit myself down in a quaint sidewalk cafe, open my mouth and  _not_  make a total ass of myself with the locals.”  
  
“We live in hope.” The guy toasts you with his glass of local brew that's so dark it looks like cola. Or coffee. Either way, it leaves a darkish residue on the glass as he knocks back half of it in one long swallow. You watch with something like horror, something like hero-worship.  
  
“Jesus, just  _watching_  you drink that stuff is putting an inch-thick layer of brass on my balls. What do they brew that with, peat?” You ask half-seriously. Then you're up, and patting the guy on his back as he chokes and laughs, absently waving off assistance.   
  
Hel- _lo_ , salty-goodness--milk isn't the only thing that builds strong bones and muscles. This guy is  _solid_ , the kind of solid that comes from demanding physical labor, not an over-used gym membership.  
  
When he seems to have caught his breath--when really all you're doing is giving him a back-rub and feeling him up, rather than aiding respiration--your hand slides reluctantly away.  
  
“Are you alright?”  
  
The guy nods, still chuckling weakly, almost unwillingly. His face is red, his eyes shut tight and his wide mouth curved in something that'd be a smile in anyone's book. When he waves his hand again, this time it's at the other chair at his table.   
  
You don't hesitate to grab your own beer and sit across from him. His composure, his envious ease quickly returns. In less than a minute, he looks exactly as he had just before: comfortable in this cafe--in this city, in this country, in this  _world_ \--in a way you've never been anywhere. And probably never will be.   
  
“I needed that,” he says finally, slitting his eyes open, face turned up toward the sunlight.   
  
“You needed Romanian beer in your lungs? Oh-kay. Glad I could help with that.” You purposely misunderstand--joke to cover up the fact that you know the feeling he's alluding to. Of how something as simple as laughter can get buried so deep under daily slights and compromises, indignities and dirt, that when it finally comes it explodes out of you like a geyser. Hurts, even as it slowly cleanses. . . .  
  
_Projecting much?_  you ask yourself harshly, taking a sip of your own beer. It tastes like varnish smells, only without the bright, piquant undertones.  
  
You'll have to sandblast your teeth and tongue to get rid of that taste.  
  
Your table companion is watching you with open curiosity now. It feels like you're being studied, as if every bit of his attention is focused on you for the purpose of . . . you don't know. Yet you can't help but wonder what he makes of you, wonder if he can somehow  _sense_ \--  
  
No. Not that you haven't come across weirder in Tepes-country, but. . . .  
  
No.  
  
Flustered and, for the first time in recent memory, unable to hide it, you take the hand he offers. The gesture should be antiquated and stiff, but as your hand is engulfed in his own larger, cooler one, it . . . isn't. Those mild brown eyes are no less warm, but they've grown ever so much sharper. You feel laid bare without knowing why.  
  
Saying: "I'm Xander Harris," seems somewhat belated in the wake of that feeling. Anyone looking at you like  _that_  should already know your name.  
  
“Pleased to meet you, Xander,” he says, calloused fingertips brushing your palm as he lets go. An unfamiliar tingle dances up your spine, spreads out to the rest of you as a light flush. “I'm Charlie Weasley.”  
  
"Nice to meet you, too."  
  
Around you, the world seems to rush by in slow motion. Trendy people in strange hats and unnecessary boots walk by. One pokes her head into the cafe to say:  _Bună, cum te simţi?_  to similarly dressed friends. Someone scoots by on a lime-green Vespa, calling out  _adieu, mon ami!_  as he goes.  
  
The barmaid you traumatized walks past, pointedly ignoring you. . . .  
  
Still staring into Charlie's eyes long after the polite moment for glancing away has come and gone like a thief in the night, your brain has to play catch-up. Not an easy thing to do at the moment, but--like always--you make a valiant effort.   
  
Said effort fails, but is rewarded with a deepening curve of Charlie's mouth.  
  
As first impressions go, you've both made fairly memorable ones.


	2. Meet the Dragons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For such an uncomplicated man, Charlie Weasley's got secrets. And dragons.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: Not mine. I did, however, take liberties with my description of a Romanian Longhorn, because the canon description? Kinda silly-looking.

"And why exactly can't we  _drive_  to—wherever it is you're dragging me to?"  
  
  
In the rocky halls of the Ţarcu Mountains, Xander's voice is made shrill and whiny. At least, he tells himself it's the mountains, and the thinner oxygen. Ahead of him, powerful in build and stride—a mighty oak of a man, kind of like the guy on the Bounty wrappers—is Charlie Weasley, displaying a heretofore unknown (to Xander) facet: mountain goat. He's all but hopping from boulder to boulder, rock to rock, feet barely touching the dusty, gravely ground. He looks like a demented flannel frog.  
  
  
Xander refuses to give him the satisfaction of asking for a halt, or even a slow-down.  
  
  
“Exploring in these mountains is forbidden to most people. And for good reason, Xand. Besides, a car wouldn't make it up this high unless it could fly."  
  
  
 _I would've said the same for myself,_  Xander thinks ruefully. "Speaking of reasons, the reason we're up here? Isn't exactly growing clearer with each labored beat of my heart," Xander grumbles, stopping for a moment to give his spine and feet a well-deserved break. Not to mention get a nice long look at Charlie's perfect and perfectly mesmerizing ass. "There'd better be respirator at the end of this delightful hike, Charlie Weasley."  
  
  
The ass stops.  
  
  
Then Charlie's turning toward him—not so much an improvement on all the perfection, as a pleasantly lateral shift—chuckling at the no doubt glazed look in Xander's eyes. "Much better than that."  
  
  
" _Better_  than a respirator?" Xander tries to ignore the parade o' porn that his brain insists on playing, all in response to Charlie's low, sexy, British-guy voice and Tom-of-Finland build (showcased to perfection in red flannel and black denim, like,  _whoa_ ). Xander hangs his head to collect his thoughts, such as they are. He's been oddly fuzzy since they started this illegal mountain trek. All he’s got the energy to do is walk, bitch about having to walk, and fantasize about Charlie bending him over each and every boulder they pass.  
  
  
Shaking his head to clear out the lingering fog and smut, he doggedly tries to close the distance between himself and Charlie. It's all about one foot in front of the other. That motto's gotten Xander to many a destination long after he ought to have quit. "Better. Than a respirator? What—is it a whole new respiratory system, maybe?"  
  
  
Instead of resuming his loose-limbed leaping through the gravelly mountain pass, Charlie ambles back to Xander, not slipping once on all the piles of loose gravel. Then, it's a toss up between which is more surprising: the heavy hands on his shoulders, or that they’re just what Xander needed to warm and soothe muscles he hadn't even realized were cold and tense.  
  
  
"Better, still," Charlie promises, that slight-curve of a smile that's as much and as little warning as Xander ever gets before the full-bore laugh. Only there's no laugh forthcoming and the light shining out of Charlie's eyes has nothing to do with amusement.  
  
  
Well . . . not much, anyway. And gee, but this man who’s almost, but not quite Xander’s boyfriend is awful close. Like,  _kissing_  close.  
  
  
"How much better're we talkin'?" Xander asks, still breathless, but for a totally—okay, mostly different reason. That curve-smile disappears and the light in Charlie's eyes flickers like distant summer lightning; his sleeves are rolled up strong, freckled forearms dusted with manly, gingery hair, and shiny burn scars that Xander never has the courage to ask about.  
  
  
" _Scads_  better."  
  
  
Xander doesn't know what a "scad" is, but he instinctively leans in closer . . . close enough that they're sharing air. Charlie's fingertips—rough, calloused, and scarred, like his arms—brush Xander's face, his cheek, his jaw, his lips . . . lingering on that last till Xander's tongue instinctively, lingeringly teases across the pad of his thumb.  
  
  
"Bloody hell, Xander." Charlie cups Xander's face in both hands. The lightning-flicker in his eyes is so intense, Xander can practically smell ozone—knows he'll taste it in their kiss. Which, if those eyes are any clue, will be slow and deep and devastating and—  
  
  
—apparently not happening any time soon.  
  
  
Charlie's lips barely buss Xander's cheek before they're gone, the rough warmth of his hands drifting down Xander's neck to his collarbone, then away. “We ought to keep moving.”  
  
  
"Please, Charlie—"  _I really need you to touch me, or give me some sign I'm not alone in feeling this way._  
  
  
"C'mon, Xand, the day's wasting, and we have a few miles to go, yet."  
  
  
Letting out a shaky breath, Xander opens eyes he hadn't even been aware of closing and Charlie . . . Charlie's several feet away, staring up the mountains and overcast sky like Admiral Perry, hand up to shield his eyes from the cloudy glare.  
  
  
"There's a trail that leads into the valley. We'll be there in less than an hour, if we don't spare the horses."  
  
  
" _There_. In an hour." Yes, Xander's totally aware of the Tone he's got going on. Four months of near-misses and aborted kisses and he's fraying at the edges. A very insistent and groin-centric (okay, and maybe a little heart-centric) part of him couldn't care less where Charlie's taking him unless it's a motel room. "And  _there_  would be. . . ?"  
  
  
"Not getting any closer, so long as we stand here chatting, mate." Charlie smiles tightly as he glances back at Xander; there's strain bracketing his eyes and that doesn't sit well with Xander at all.  
  
  
Whatever's going on, Charlie seems about as happy with the lack of forward momentum as Xander is, which is to say not at all.  
  
  
He opens his mouth to ask what the hell is going on, where the hell they're  _going_  in every conceivable sense of the word. But once again, the ass is moving. Briskly, too, given the incline of the pass.  
  
  
Xander sighs, shoving chilly hands into his jacket pockets, and hurries after Charlie, the few contents of his pack (read: old Jansport that he fled Sunnydale with) clunking and sloshing against his back.  
  
  
It's chilly enough, and he's in good enough shape that he's not sweating, but he does notice the beginnings of a stitch in his side.  
  
  
Least. Fun. Date.  _Ever_.  
  
  
"You are  _so_  not even in the running for Bestest Almost-Boyfriend Ever, Weasley," he mutters, then decides to save what little breath he has left for breathing.  
  
  


*

  
  
  
"Here we are."  
  
  
An hour, and many melodramatic huffs later, Xander draws even with Charlie, only to lose all the precious air he's been working so hard for in a disbelieving laugh.  
  
  
"Wow, this is . . . special." Xander's pleased that he manages to inject the phrase with every drop of sincerity it deserves.  
  
  
The first steep ridge after the steeper descent of the pass descends almost gently into a deep valley of barren rock, snow, and cracked earth. It’s an anomaly in this relatively picturesque region, and not at all what Xander had expected.  
  
  
 _I expected it to be all green grass and wildflowers; a magicked up picnic lunch, complete with a checkered blanket to have sex on, afterward. Never mind that Charlie doesn’t have magic powers, picnic-related or otherwise, and definitely never mind that we haven't actually kissed, yet. . . ._  
  
  
Though that’s a pretty tough thing to never mind. "It's like a Romanian-flavored slice of Shangri-La, Charlie. Oh, you betcha!"  
  
  
"Xander--"  
  
  
But Xander’s sexually frustrated, feeling pissy, and in no mood for any of this. All he wants is a shower, a beer, and maybe a guy who doesn’t mistake hiking for hot man-sex. "Keep bringing me to fancy places like this and you'll turn my head completely. But I think it’s time you sherpa me back to my apartment before all this glitz and glamor gives me a fucking aneurysm!"  
  
  
" _Xander_."  
  
  
Halfway up the ridge, striding with renewed vigor and determination, Xander pauses, but doesn't look back.  
  
  
"Yes,  _Charlie_?" Poisoned-honey Tone learned from none other than Buffy Summers, perfected under none other than Dawn Summers. That tone, even in Xander's admittedly clumsy hands, has quelled brasher men than Charlie Weasley seems to be.  
  
  
There’s a double crack like thunder—too close, too loud, and just what’d cap a perfect day like this—then Charlie’s hands are on his shoulders again and Xander starts.  
  
  
“Jesus, make some noise when you move!” Xander shrugs off the hands and turns to glare at Charlie, expecting some kind of British-style apology or at least a remorse-face.  
  
  
But Charlie merely smiles—that slightly tight, slightly anxious smile, which sucks some of the wind out of Xander's sails. Charlie doesn't do things for  _no_  reason, wouldn't have brought Xander all this way, be this  _nervous_  for no reason. Because if there’s one thing Charlie Weasley _never_  is, it’s nervous. "Okay, so  _why_  are we here? I'm not about to get Punk'd, am I—gah!"  
  
  
Charlie grabs Xander's arms, yanks him close, and kisses him hard. At least at first. By the time Charlie wraps those strong arms around him—effectively pinning Xander's hands behind his back and under his pack—the kiss is a lot less about warring teeth and tongues as it is about something else entirely.  
  
  
Still, it's damn near impossible to remember why he'd doubted Charlie's interest in him, held tight as he is against growing proof of that interest  
  
  
Never one to waste an opportunity, Xander frees his hands and shrugs off his pack, then wraps his arms around Charlie’s neck tight enough to make Charlie  _oomph_  and gasp in a breath.  
  
  
“Sorry, sorry,” Xander apologizes, and applies himself to sucking hickies onto Charlie’s throat to prove just how sorry he’s not.  
  
  
"Wanted—ow!—to kiss you since the first time you opened that silly, gorgeous mouth of yours." Charlie's lips tease as they talk, moist air ghosting across Xander's cheek.  
  
  
Xander tries to memorize every muscle of Charlie's back and ass—and there are  _many_ , ye gods, but the man really  _is_  a Tom of Finland-type—with his fingertips, the way he's memorizing Charlie's neck with his tongue. "Yeah, I'm—sexy when I insult a woman, her sisters, and her livestock."  
  
  
"You're sexy all the time," Charlie murmurs, catching Xander's lips again before he can respond, or wreak more hickies. The kisses tastes, of all things, like pumpkin pie.  
  
  
Xander moans, sliding his hands down Charlie's back. A small, freaksome, analytical part of his mind quietly wonders how they went from damn-manly, non-sexual hiking, to kissing, groping, precoital meltdown. . . .  
  
  
 _Be quiet, you_ , his libido snaps, decisively shutting down his brain.  
  
  
"Guh," he exhales when Charlie's focus shifts from his lips to his neck . . . then his ear. It's a cliche, but this is everything Xander had imagined it would be  _and_  more. It's bliss, having Charlie's hands and mouth on him, and only partly because they've waited so long. "You're awfully g-good at this."  
  
  
A smile he can feel against his jugular vein, followed by gentle bites and licks. Even Charlie's grinding is unhurried, as if they have all the time in the world. "I know."  
  
  
"And far too modest."  
  
  
"Mmhm."  
  
  
"No, really, don't be modest. If  _you_  don't sing your praises, no one else will."  
  
  
"You talk quite a lot," Charlie murmurs against the spot below his ear, which is apparently a major erogenous zone.  
  
  
Xander turns red. Even his ears. "Sorry."  
  
  
"No, no." Charlie's kisses him again, till he can't even remember what he's sorry about. "I like chattiness. It's a turn-on."  
  
  
"Really?" Still blushing, Xander digs up a wicked smirk he copped from Spike's basement days. "The challenge is in finding ways to shut me up."  
  
  
"Is it?" That fierce glint is in Charlie' eyes again, the one that sets Xander shivering; that's its second appearance in as many hours. “Challenge accepted.”  
  
  
"Yeah, and it's about time! We waited four months to do this, why?" Xander complains—very nearly whines. " _We_ , very much meaning  _you_ , you bastard."  
  
  
That lightning-look fades, replaced by a look that’s far too somber for the current goings-on, and Xander curses his big mouth. "I mean—I'm not mad or anything. Waiting sucked, but it was worth it.  _You're_  so worth it."  
  
  
Charlie's eyebrows lift more than a fraction; they travel half the distance between their normal resting place and his hairline. Then he smiles, bashful and unguarded: a little-boy smile that makes Xander wish they'd grown up together. "Would you—would you agree that we get on well, Xander?"  
  
  
Totally nonplussed by the complete lack of irony in that question, Xander rolls his eyes and rocks his hips into Charlie's. That evilicious Spike-smirk graces his lips once more as Charlie hisses, big hands clenching on Xander's hip and ass respectively.  
  
  
"Uh . . .  _yeah._  We get on well. We really,  _really_  do." He tries to steal another kiss and Charlie lets him for a moment before breaking it. "We  _were_  getting on well, anyway. Stop playing hard-to-kiss—we've got four months, three days, and forty seven minutes worth of missed making out to make up for. Not that I've been keeping track."  
  
  
"Xander—" Charlie laughs and lets himself be kissed breathless, then kissed some more, till he has to twine his hands in Xander's hair and pull his head back. "I find that I like you more than I've liked anyone in quite some time."  
  
  
"Cool, yeah, I do, t—wait, you do?"  
  
  
"Yes, I do." Just as Xander has a tendency to exaggerate, Charlie has the opposite tendency, and he's looking into Xander's eyes, steady and serious and  _no_ , Xander's not blushing like a love-struck girl, he's merely flushed from all the damn manly hiking this day has entailed.  
  
  
"I really like you, too, Charlie," he says, leaning closer for a hug that turns into a kiss that's as slow and sweet as a lullaby. A  _The Princess Bride_  sort of kiss.  
  
  
 _And thank you, Wills, for gaying me up, as requested. . . ._  
  
  
Charlie sighs—pure relief, though it doesn't last long. "Listen, I know we haven't really talked about—any kind of future, or even how long you're going to be here—"  
  
  
Xander laughs a little, though there's nothing funny about the time and lack of anything resembling an agenda he's had for the past year. "It's safe to say that I'm planning on an indefinite stay in Romania."  
  
  
"What about your family—Willow, Dawn, Giles, and Buffy? Won't they have something to say about you staying away from home so long?" Each name is a kiss, which makes them somehow harder to hear.  
  
  
Xander pulls out of Charlie's arms and walks back down the ridge a little way, staring down into the un-pretty valley. "No. They’re not a part of my life anymore, and there's no going back." At these bland words of acceptance that've been over a year in coming, Xander laughs a little and wraps his arms around himself. The chill of the mountains feels like it's seeping bone-ward. "They're all gone, now. Beyond my reach. Even if there was a way to go back, there's no back to go to. You can never go home again."  
  
  
After a few moments Charlie's hands settle on Xander's shoulders again, grounding him into the present, and  _this_  reality, warming him from the outside, in.  
  
  
"Whatever strife keeps you from those you love, Xander, I won't lie and say that I'm not glad you'll be here for awhile, yet." The hands turn into arms that slide around Xander and he leans back into them. It's a startling feeling, but incredibly  _good_ , after weeks of waiting. It feels like coming home. "Listen, I know we've only gotten to know each other a little, but—there's something I think you should know about me, my life, before we go any further."  
  
  
Charlie's words are warm puffs that ruffle Xander's hair. He squints skyward and tells himself he hasn't missed being held, and wouldn't miss it if he had to give it up again. That it's really true, that you can never go home again. "Are you married?"  
  
  
"I was, once. Not anymore." Regret there that Xander doesn't know how to console or question; but that regret is easily eclipsed by Xander's own relief. "I  _am_ , among other things, a wizard. Magic is real, Xander, and I'm a wizard."  
  
  
" _You're_  a wizard?" Xander looks over his shoulder and gets kissed lingeringly, like Charlie's trying to store the feeling in case no more kisses are forthcoming. And while it's tempting to get lost in such a kiss, they have other things to discuss. "Spells, and hexes, and everything? You do those?"  
  
  
"Yes."  
  
  
"Huh." Xander mulls that over, trying to find clues that he may have missed, and finds nothing more than he might expect of any person as private as Charlie can be. The fact is, there were none of the obvious signs of magic use that Xander's familiar with (though things may work differently here) such as burnt-herby scents that linger, chalk or paint under the nails, extra static cling, etc. Charlie may be using magic, but he's certainly not  _abusing it_ , and that's enough for Xander. "Okay."  
  
  
There's a long sort of silence, as if Charlie's waiting for Xander to say something more. Then he exhales audibly. "Hmm. You don't sound like you think I'm a nutter."  
  
  
"That's because I know you're not, at least not about this. You're not the first wizard I've met; though you are, by far, the sexiest."  
  
  
"And you say  _I'm_  a smooth-talker." Charlie chuckles, then bites Xander's earlobe, his fingers lightly drumming Xander's abdomen. "So you're not upset about what it all means, or at me for not telling you sooner?"  
  
  
"Well, you didn't know me very well, so I get not telling me sooner, I do. And I've been living with magic and the supernatural for literally half my life. I'm used to it. But just so we're clear: you're definitely not  _marrried_  anymore, right?"  
  
  
Charlie mouths a soft  _no, not married_  against Xander's neck, and he relaxes. "Good. I mean, the wizard-thing, that's unexpected, but wizards I can work with. Married guys . . . not so much.  
  
  
"Have I told you lately how amazing you are?" Charlie asks, his voice low and intent. He's still hard enough that Xander' can feel him, all hot and urgent, through the barriers of their jeans. "That I've never met anyone like you?"  
  
  
"Wow, whatever other big secret you wanna tell me, tell me now." It's meant to be a joke, but Xander's laugh is anything but amused. Charlie sighs, and leaves off the grinding altogether. "Just tell me. I promise I'll try not to freak out no matter how big the secret is, okay?"  
  
  
(And it must be  _big_  if the wizard-thing was the easier secret to tell.)  
  
  
"Alright. But first, tell me what you see in the valley, Xand," Charlie murmurs, sending a prickly thrill up and down Xander's spine that make his toes curl. "Look closely."  
  
  
Confused by this seeming change of subject, Xander looks, and snorts. "I see a place I really don't wanna spend the rest of the day looking closely at, hiking in, or talking about."  
  
  
"Close your eyes for a moment, then."  
  
  
Xander does so automatically, that small place in his brain now wondering at the trust he's given to a man he barely knows, though not for lack of trying. After a few seconds, Charlie whispers what sounds like  _Revelum_  in a firm, soft voice. Then something warm and smooth—too smooth to be one of Charlie's fingers—touches the spot between Xander's eyebrows and above his nose. There's a tingle along the nerves in Xander's eyes and he shudders, about to ask Charlie  _what the hell_? when Charlie's arms slip back around his waist.  
  
  
"Now, open your eyes."  
  
  
Xander obeys huffily, only to find himself looking into a much different valley than what he'd closed his eyes on. It's green and lush, ringed with trees, and snow-capped mountains. There's even a lake in the distance, sparkling and reflecting a blameless-blue sky above. The valley has magically—lliterally—transformed into something the Von Trapps would hike and sing in.  
  
  
But none of that is what snags Xander's attention. What  _does_  snag his attention is the large, winged beast that seems to be circling the lake. "Um, Charlie?"  
  
  
"Yes, Xander." Charlie's gaze almost tangible, like hot sunlight on Xander's head, but he can't look away from the— _it_. He can't look away from  _it_ , because oh, dear Lord in Heaven,  _it_  is going to spot them at any second.  
  
  
" _Dragon_ , Charlie." Xander starts trying to back them up the ridge, but Charlie stands firm and holds Xander in place, too. He's even stronger than he looks, and that's pretty goddamned strong.  
  
  
"I know there's a dragon, Xander. But he's my friend, he won't harm us. He's a  _good_  dragon." A gentle, reassuring kiss is pressed to the back of Xander's head and his nape, but he barely notices them. All his notice is taken by the fact that the dragon  _has_ , in fact, spotted them, and is lazily winging its way toward them.  
  
  
Xander swallows.  
  
  
Then swallows again.  
  
  
 _Okay. Charlie knows there's a dragon and he hasn't dragged us fleeing back down the ridge. Ergo, he has bigger secrets to tell than I could've guessed. Secrets that involve mythical animals, and spells to make gorgeous green valleys look like rock-strewn shit-heaps._  
  
  
But some of what Charlie just said actually begins to trickle through and Xander releases the death-grip he has on Charlie's wrists.  
  
  
"Wait—a 'good dragon'?" He risks briefly taking his eyes off the skies to look over his shoulder at Charlie, who's sort of smiling at the distant-but-getting-closer- _fast_ dragon. In fact, it's close enough for Xander to see it's a dreamy shade of blue-green, with a mouth the size of the Holland Tunnel. "Those exist?"  
  
  
"They do. And this good dragon's a Romanian Longhorn. His name is Percy." Xander can all but hear that rare, inscrutable grin in Charlie's voice.  
  
  
"I— _Percy_?" He takes his eyes off the dragon for another moment to see if Charlie's fucking with him. But of course, Charlie isn't. Charlie  _wouldn't_. "Like your  _brother_ , Percy?"  
  
  
"None other.  _Mornin', Percy_!" Charlie calls, as he waves at the approaching dragon. "I promise, you two are going to get on like a house on fire, Xand."  
  
  
 _Possibly literally,_  Xander thinks with real trepidation. "Oh, fuck," he says in a shaky, but definitely not-panicking voice. (Charlie's good opinion of it aside, there's a fucking  _dragon_ winging its way toward them, and that's not a common or comforting occurrence in Xander's life.) "I really hope it doesn't have to take a dump right now."  
  
  
Charlie's laugh booms out, loud enough to momentarily rival any dragon-wings. Less than a quarter of a mile away, and Xander can make out the mellow, slightly iridescent sheen of its scales, it's so damn  _big_. Its horns are some paler color, possibly yellow, and there are pearl grey, cloud-like vapor trails coming from its nostrils.  
  
  
One sudden, sonic-boom flap of leathery green wings and—  
  
  
—and it's circling  _them_. Cloaking them in a cool, continuous shadow as heavy as doom, and almost gale-force wind. Xander grapples with the marrow-deep instinct to fleerunhidecower from not-quite-certain death. Locked away from most of what passes for his rational thought, he is momentarily too frozen to even look up at it . . . not that he'll have to look up, shortly.  
  
  
Percy is landing.  
  
  
Charlie's voice is low, his fingers warm as they soothe up and down Xander's sides. "Do you trust me, Xand?"  
  
  
And in the end, it's as simple as that: does he trust Charlie, or is he about to run screaming back up the ridge and into the mountains, thence back to Marga and his apartment, there to have a breakdown under his bed.  
  
  
Xander turns to face Charlie with what he considers remarkable aplomb. The wind around them is kicking up grass and forcing them both to squint and duck their heads. The ground actually shakes a little as Percy touches down twenty feet away.  
  
  
But Charlie's eyes manage to lock onto his own and not let go. Finally, Xander shrugs, and smiles. "Of course I trust you!" he yells over the wind and flapping.  
  
  
Charlie grins as big as Xander's ever seen and hugs him tight-tight-tight, kissing him like a man who just got a  _yes_  to his proposal.  
  
  
"Hold on, Dragon-Slayer—"  
  
  
"I don't slay," kiss, "I guard." More kisses, but Xander pulls away and Charlie swears. It's nice that for once, Xander's not the one feeling frustrated by a lack of smoochies.  
  
  
"Dragons needs guarding? Do tell." Xander smacks Charlie's hand off his ass and turns to get a good look at Percy.  
  
  
Even for a dragon he's got a long neck. But he's also got a barrel of body and strong withers. Overall, he looks like something out of World of Warcraft, all scales and spines, ridges and wreaths of smoke. His head is the size of a sedan, his snout is narrow and almost delicate, but even so his teeth are longer than warrants close inspection. At least for Xander's peace of mind. The same goes for those talons.  
  
  
The humongous green eyes that examine Xander just as keenly are aware, intelligent . . . the size of truck tires; and the pupils are the size of Xander's head. A red carpet of a tongue rolls out of his mouth, as well as a trumpet of a roar that nearly deafens Xander. It's the loudest  _hello!_  he hopes ever to hear.  
  
  
"That they do. See, the majority of dragons are not tame, and tend to stay away from humans. But the ones that don't can sometimes wind up hunted, even to extinction. It's barbaric." Charlie's unusually pedantic voice snaps with masked anger, the hands on Xander's hips clenching once, tightly, then release. "Percy, here—" strong, surprisingly possessive arms slide around Xander's waist again, pulling him back into another tight, home-ish embrace "—is a Romanian Longhorn. Named so for obvious reasons. His horns are quite long and unusually beautiful, even for a male in his prime."  
  
  
Percy preens, as if he understands what's being said. Perhaps he does. And his horns really are . . . beautiful. They're a mellow, goldenish color, and spiral upwards like an intricate head-dress.   
  
  
"Longhorns were hunted specifically for their horns, which can be used in various potions," Charlie continues a minute later. "They're officially an endangered species, though less urgently so than ten years ago, or even five. Their horns are now a Class B Non-Tradeable Material, too."  
  
  
"So they're like—ginormous spotted owls?" Xander's mind offers up a mental picture of Percy trying to stoop on a squirrel and he snorts, but doesn't laugh because  _yes_ , he has grasped that this dragon is a) not going to hurt either of them, and b) obviously chummy with Charlie, but Xander's Sunnydale Instinct won't be ignored.  
  
  
Considering how well it's served him, it never will be.  
  
  
"That's it, then. The only secrets I have that are mine to tell," Charlie breathes in Xander's ear. His voice falters just a little, nerves finally showing through. But the arms around Xander are still rock-steady. "I really wanted two of the most important men in my life to meet each other. Xander, this is my good friend, Percy. Percy, this is my . . . Xander."  
  
  
"Uh . . . hi." Xander waves at the dragon— _Percy_ , and feels more than a little foolish. The reply he receives is a snort of steam that's warm enough to raise a sweat, which is more than mildly alarming. He leans back to whisper to Charlie:  
  
  
"So . . . what, um . . . what do Romanian Longhorns, uh, eat?"  
  
  
"Americans."  
  
  
"Not funny, Mister!" Xander smacks Charlie's hands and Charlie laughs again, big and bright. He seems happier than Xander's ever witnessed.  _Lighter_. It occurs to him that Charlie's not used to keeping secrets or lying, and that he's been doing both for months, just to be with Xander.  
  
  
"I couldn't resist, sorry." Charlie laughs again, and Xander doesn't have the heart to get pissy about it. "They eat livestock—cows, sheep, goats—horses, if they can't get the former. Never people, not once in recorded history."  
  
  
"I once ate a bear," Percy chimes in— _hisses in_ , interspersed with deep, gravelly rumbles. "Tasssted terrible and the fur tickled horribly."  
  
  
Xander blinks. Then the bosom buddy of the Sunnydale Survival Instinct, the Sunnydale Coping Mechanism, kicks right in. Dragons that speak perfect English? Not as high an unbelievability factor as dragons  _actually existing_ , it turns out. "Um, yeah . . . I can see where that might happen. But hey, object lesson learned: stay away from omnivorous, upright mammals, right?"  
  
  
"Yesss." Percy nods sagely, his mournful-big green eyes lowering to half-mast for a moment. His forked tongue flicks in and out ceaselessly. "I quite like chicken, thhhough. Never enough of it to make a meal."  
  
  
Which startles a nervous bark of a laugh out of Xander. "Well, I'm guessing a bucket of wings and thighs doesn't so much hit the spot, as go hurtling  _past_  the spot, totally unnoticed."  
  
  
"Eating only wingsss and thhhighs would be wasssteful." Percy says, sounding utterly aghast. No mean feat for a dragon, Xander supposes, some of his nerves draining away. It's tough to be too afraid of something that can manage to sound so prissy, Mayor Wilkins notwithstanding.  
  
  
"Tell that to Colonel Sanders."  
  
  
Giant eyebrows draw together. "To  _whhhooom_?"  
  
  
"Yous peek parcel tong?" Charlie demands, suddenly turning Xander to face him. He looks half-doubtful and half-worried. Under his many, many freckles, he's sheet-white, and his brown eyes are saucer-wide.  
  
  
"Uh, I'll take: A Group Of Words That Make Absolutely No Sense, for five hundred, Alex!" Xander wipes his damp, but no longer sweating palms on his jeans. Charlie just keeps on staring and staring, like he's never seen Xander before. "Jesus, you look like you've seen a ghost. Or maybe a dragon, huh?"  
  
  
More staring. It's a bit unnerving to see Charlie so gobsmacked.  
  
  
"Weasssley is the bessst of our guardiansss, but he doesss not ssspeak our language, Sssander." Percy smokes mournfully. "A ssshame."  
  
  
"Yeah, but hey, your English is fine—hell, it's better than mine, which isn't really saying much."  
  
  
"It isss imposssible for me to emulate your tongue. It isss apparently quite posssible for you to emulate mine."  
  
  
Now, Xander's nerves are completely forgotten as he computes what the dragon—and  _wow_ , is that shocker still happening to his poor, poor brain—just said. "Wait a minute, so I'm speaking a different language, now? No way! I'm speaking good ol' American, right, Charlie? Charlie?"  
  
  
A glance at Charlie shows some of his color returning, but he looks baffled, now, rather than horrified.  
  
  
"Er, icon tundra stanju," he gabbles out, and it's around here that Xander starts thinking the words  _practical_  and  _joke_ , and that he's the only one not in on it. His eyes tick back and forth between Charlie and Percy, expecting laughter, or knowing grins. But they both just look confused now. Charlie says something else, another handful of words that don't make any sense, and Percy's hissing something that also makes no sense. For a few moments, Xander can't understand anything  _anyone_ 's saying, including himself. It's as if his brain is playing catch-up, trying to be two things at once and failing miserably.  
  
  
For a few minutes, it's like there's terrible pressure building up between his ears, as if he's in an airplane, trying to make his ears pop, but they just won't, and it's  _awful_ , disorienting and vaguely nauseating until finally, they  _pop_ —  
  
  
"Okay, does  _anyone_  understand what anyone  _else_  is saying?!" Xander asks slowly, carefully, loudly, and Charlie lets out a breath he'd clearly been holding.  
  
  
"I understand you, now. But when you were speaking to Percy, you weren't speaking English. You were speaking Parseltongue, all hisses and sighs." Charlie blushes a little and clears his throat. "It, em, was actually rather sexy."  
  
  
Ignoring his own sexy incomprehensibility for the moment, Xander's brows furrow. "Parcels- _what_?"  
  
  
"No, Parsel _tongue_." When Xander blinks blankly, Charlie smiles a little, finally looking like himself. "Dragonese, Xand."  
  
  
"I was speaking Dragonese?" At Charlie's nod, Xander scoffs. "Oh, yeah? Then what language were  _you_  speaking, just now?"  
  
  
"English," Charlie and Percy say at the same time, and Xander has no trouble understanding either of them.  
  
  
"Ohh-kay, but it sure as hell didn't sound like it. It sounded like gobbledy-goop." More like a grab bag of random words thrown together; like that episode of Star Trek: Next Gen. "This is all your doing, right? I mean, you  _are_  some kind of sorcerer, right?"  
  
  
There's a flicker in Charlie's eyes—amusement, maybe. "It's wizard, and yes. But there's no spell to make a person speak Parseltongue if they weren't born knowing how. And Mugg—em, non-wizards generally aren't born knowing how."  
  
  
He trusts Charlie's word until something happens that changes that. So far, nothing has. But still. . . . "So how come  _I_  can speak Parseltongue, if this isn't a magic spell?"  
  
  
"I don't know. All I do know is that it's a rare gift, albeit a much-maligned one," Charlie adds with a glance at Percy, who lays his head between his claws like he's about to go to sleep. "It's nothing that can be taught, or spelled into a person. Only passed down through the blood, or a deep, deep mystical connection."  
  
  
"Um,  _you're_  the only person I have any kind of connection with at all, these days, and  _you_  don't speak it." And the idea that either of Xander's parents had been a wizard, who was fluent in Dragonese is both humorous and horrific. Though Xander is half convinced his paternal grandmother had been part dragon, part harpy, and all bitch. "It's not in my blood, and not from some mystical connection . . . so where'd it come from? Why does it sound exactly like English to me? How come I never noticed I had it before now?"  
  
  
"Are there thhhat many dragonsss in America, thhhen?" Percy asks, with sarcasm so dry, Xander half thinks he's being sincere, but for the lazys curl on the ends of his esses.  
  
  
 _Dragons exist, they have a language, and are capable of sarcasm . . . what a fun day this is shaping up to be. . . ._  "Oh, shut up," Xander hisses, and yep—that  _ain't_  English he's hissing, come to think of it. Granted, it  _feels_  like words, like something Xander's spoken all his life, hence the mix-up. But now that he's paying attention to it, it doesn't sound or feel like  _English_  at all.  
  
  
Percy snorts smokily, and closes his eyes. Apparently all the excitement of a new human has worn off, no matter that the new human can speak fluent Dragonese with no history of having done so previously.  
  
  
The new human, however, finds that he's more than a little worried about what  _that_  means, in the grander scheme of things. . . .  
  
  
"Charlie?" Something in Xander's tone grabs Charlie's full attention, and the comfort of his embrace.  
  
  
"We'll get this sorted out, Xand, you have my word," Charlie says gravely. "I have two very good friends, one who's an expert in just about everything, and one who speaks Parseltongue. Between the two of them, we'll have you sorted in no time, okay?"  
  
  
Xander nods and tries to smile. "Okay, but . . . is it a bad thing that I can speak Parseltongue? You seemed kinda upset before, and you said it was a 'much-maligned' gift—"  
  
  
"I spoke without thinking, and I apologize." Charlie shakes his head, looking chastened. "There was a time when speaking Parseltongue wasn't considered a good thing in wizarding society, but those days have passed. Thanks, in no small part, to those friends I told you about. If and when you feel up to meeting them, they'll have at least  _some_  answers to give you. And whatever they can't answer, they'll find out. Till then, try to put it out of your mind, right?"  
  
  
Taking a deep breath, Xander nods again, and when Charlie kisses him, he holds on tight; even after it's ended, and they're simply staring into each others' eyes. Charlie brushes the calloused tips of his fingers lightly over Xander's lips. This time, Xander's smile is real as he mock bites Charlie's fingers.  
  
  
It's  _definitely_  time to get back to Marga, and Xander's apartment. Specifically to Xander's bed, _STAT_.  
  
  
"So, Dances-With-Dragons, got anything else you wanna share with me—saved the world, lately?"  
  
  
"Not lately, no." Charlie shrugs placidly, but there's that wicked glint in his eyes.  
  
  
"Me neither," Xander agrees, though this isn't entirely true, depending on how one defines _lately_. "So if there's nothing else to see here—"  
  
  
"Only the Head Keeper's cottage."  
  
  
Xander rolls his eyes and suppresses a long suffering sigh. Wonders what could be more important than Charlie maybe teleporting them back to Marga. "Really? Sounds fascinating. What's in there?" he asks unenthusiastically. Charlie's eyebrows raise just enough to suggest Xander's being obtuse.  
  
  
"My bed," he says simply, and that's all Xander needs to hear before he's dragging Charlie past Percy—with a rushed "sleep well, dragon-breath," that's half hiss, half growl—and cottage-ward. Not that he knows where the Head Keeper's cottage is, but that's never stopped him before, and it's certainly not a deterrent now. Hell, he can even make out buildings in the distance. . . .  
  
  
Percy's rumbling, smoky chuckle follows them into the valley.


	3. The Head-Keeper's Cottage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Takes place immediately after “Meet The Dragons.” Shameless pr0n, but with a plot. If you squint.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: Imagine if Joss and J.K. had a child. . . .

“Welcome to my humble abode.”  
  
One hand held loosely in Charlie's, Xander follows him inside the homey looking head-keeper’s cottage, eyes wide as he looks around the sunny space.  
  
The hallway is brief, leading directly to a living room filled with sturdy, mismatched wooden furniture. There’s a huge stone fireplace in the center of the wall facing the hallway with a mantle that’s littered with framed photos that seem to be . . .  _moving_. . . .  
  
Xander moves closer to examine the photos, but large hands bracket his hips, squeezing lightly before sliding around his waist to pull him back into a warm, strong embrace.  
  
“So . . . what do you think?”  
  
Xander shivers as Charlie’s warm breath ghosts past his ear, and leans back, letting himself be swayed gently to a beat only Charlie hears.  
  
“I think you need to show me your bedroom before you show me anyplace else,” Xander says with a calm that belies the way his heart is suddenly racing. He can feel Charlie getting hard against his ass, slowly grinding against him.  
  
“And  _I_  think that’s a fine idea,” Charlie kisses into Xander’s neck. His right hand slips down Xander’s abdomen to rest possessively on hardness that matches his own.  
  
Just that simple touch has Xander squirming and hissing like a cat in heat.  
  
“Oh, God, I want you to fuck me,” he breathes, not even realizing he’s speaking that Parcels-tongue language again until Charlie chuckles.  
  
“I have no idea what you just said, Xand,” he groans, nipping Xander’s ear lobe. “Or maybe I do.”  
  
Xander happily lets Charlie unzip him and work his way into Xander’s boxers. The first dry, rough slide of Charlie’s calloused hand makes Xander cry out. He doesn’t even notice Charlie’s other hand leaving his stomach, or the breathless, almost choked “ _apparate_ ,” breathed against his neck. All he knows is there’s a brief rush of air that makes him shiver, then Charlie’s holding him tighter and stroking him harder.  
  
“Fuck, if you keep this up, I’m gonna come in my pants, Charlie. . . .”  
  
Charlie chuckles again. “Well, we wouldn’t want that . . .  _divestio_!”  
  
And just like that, Xander’s naked and cold—except that he’s  _not_  cold, because an equally naked Charlie is still pressed against him, his cock nudging at Xander’s ass.  
  
“Tell me if I’m moving too fast,” he whispers, and Xander snorts, forgoing the intense pleasure of Charlie’s hand to turn and face him. Which, considering the way Charlie’s cock nestles against his own, hot and hard, is pretty damned intense, too.  
  
Smoldering,  _for-real-smoldering_  brown eyes stare solemnly, steadily into Xander’s own.  
  
He sighs, reaching up to cup Charlie’s face in his hand and Charlie leans into the touch, turning his face briefly to kiss Xander’s palm. It's a courtly, old-fashioned gesture that makes Xander smile.  
  
“At this point, Charlie Weasley, ‘too fast’ couldn’t be fast enough. I’ve wanted this from the first time I saw you.”  
  
Charlie’s smile is just as solemn as his gaze. “The feeling is mutual.” One hand settles on Xander’s ass, the other comes up to brush the fringe off Xander’s face, then brush his thumb across Xander’s lips. Charlie licks his own and takes a deep breath. “I don’t think I’ve ever wanted anyone more than I want  _you_ , right now. You make me feel like . . . like the luckiest bloke in the world.”  
  
Xander blinks a few times—no, he’s  _not_  blinking away tears, he’s just got allergies—and leans in toward Charlie, who leans in toward him. They kiss softly, sweetly.  
  
When oxygen becomes a priority once more, Xander breaks the kiss, but leans his forehead against Charlie’s. “Mister, you’re about to get the blowjob of your  _life_.”  
  
Charlie makes that slightly choked sound again and squeezes Xander tight against him. “Bloody hell, but I’d like that. Your mouth on me— _anywhere_  on me, wet, wicked, and wanton . . . but I want to take care of you, first.” His fingers stroke meaningfully between Xander’s cheeks, one calloused finger making several increasingly insistent passes over his entrance before pressing against it just as insistently. “I want to see you come, and I want to be inside of you when you do.”  
  
“I want that, too.” Xander shivers, squirming back onto Charlie’s finger, willing to take him dry, as long as he can  _take_  him. But Charlie removes his finger. “You don’t know how much I want that, Charlie. How much I want  _you_  . . . fuck, you need to take me to your bedroom now, or we’re gonna be laid out on your livingroom floor.”  
  
Charlie kisses him again, walking Xander backwards exactly four steps, then smiling on Xander’s lips just when the backs of his knees hit something hard and he loses his balance, falling back.  
  
Only to be surprised when, instead of floor, he hits something soft.  
  
“Take a look around, Xander.”  
  
And Xander does, to see that he’s in a bedroom as sunny and cozy as the livingroom had been, all rich, burnished wood and mismatched furniture. The soft thing Xander’s fallen on is apparently Charlie’s bed, a huge, canopied thing with red pillows three deep, and red and gold curtains drawn back. There’s a huge armoire with what almost looks like a stereo system in it, and more framed, moving photos of redheads Xander can only assume are related to Charlie. Then it  _really_  sinks in where he is, and the fact that he has no idea how he got there.  
  
“How in the  _hell_ ,” Xander breathes, goggling up at Charlie, who grins.  
  
“Magic,” he says simply. And before Xander can comment further, he suddenly notices that Charlie looks like a  _god_ , that muscular, Tom-of-Finland body backlit by afternoon sunshine. His wind-tousled red hair—and yes, curtains and carpet do, indeed, match—curls ever so slightly around his square, strong-featured face.  
  
His cock, large, uncut, and curving proudly upward, is already brick-red and leaking steadily.  
  
Mysteries of magic and bedrooms forgotten, Xander licks his own lips and smiles, crooking his finger as he scoots up the bed till he hits the first row of pillows. Charlie approaches the bed slowly, stroking that gorgeous cock.  
  
“You are beautiful,” he murmurs as he kneels on the foot of the bed, his eyes taking Xander in and obviously liking what he sees. Xander, for his part, had forgotten he was naked, and now he blushes, resisting the urge to cover himself. He’s in decent shape, he knows, not a chore to look at. But neither is he as cut and perfectly  _masculine_  as Charlie. It’s enough to give a guy a complex. . . .  
  
But then Charlie’s crawling up the bed and Xander’s instinctively spreading his legs, drawing them up slightly, so that when Charlie’s face is finally over his own, Xander can bracket those powerful thighs with his own.  
  
Never breaking eye-contact, Charlie gingerly lowers his weight onto Xander, who wraps his arms around Charlie’s neck. As their pelvises align, seeking and finding each other’s hardness, they swear, Charlie in English, Xander in Parcels-tongue. Then Charlie swears again, burying his face in the hollow junction where Xander’s neck meets his collarbone.  
  
“When you do that, it goes straight to my bloody prick,” he mumbles, laughing a little, rocking and grinding his pelvis down into Xander’s. “All those hisses and sighs . . . fucking  _hell_ , Xand. I didn’t think it was possible to want you more.”  
  
_Wow . . . Parcels-tongue equals sexy-times for Xander . . . something to keep in mind,_  Xander thinks absently, quite aware as he arches up into Charlie’s heavy, solid body, that his mind will be shorting out momentarily. He kisses Charlie’s hair, noting that it smells like grass and earth and wind: like  _summer_.  
  
Just like a Charlie Weasley  _should_  smell.  
  
“You  _so_  need to be inside me five minutes ago.” Xander nuzzles Charlie’s temple till Charlie shudders and looks up at him, his face still solemn, but a little desperate, too.  
  
“Are you comfortable with me using more magic to help prepare you?” He asks quietly, and Xander’s eyes widen.  
  
“Um. Yeah, I guess. What, uh, kind of magic?”  
  
Charlie leans down to kiss Xander thoroughly, mapping his mouth like it’s unexplored territory. “ _Lubricio_ ,” he pulls away to whisper then he’s kissing a wary Xander again.  
  
With a quick, not unpleasant tingle, Xander feels a . . .  _force_  is the only way he can describe it to himself, insinuate itself into him, leaving slick warmth in its wake before disappearing completely. Then Charlie’s levering his body up, pushing one of Xander’s legs up and out, and stroking down the inside of his thigh. That large, rough hand holds, fondles, and squeezes Xander’s balls until Xander’s moaning and trying to beg. All that comes out is gibberish.  _Double_ gibberish, since it’s in Parcels-tongue.  
  
Charlie watches all this with almost detached approval, his fingers finally stroking back past perineum, to Xander’s opening, circling and circling till Xander’s breathing hard, eyes half-lidded, and every hair on his body standing up. He spreads his legs wider, wanting Charlie to have all the access he needs. But all Charlie does for long moments is stare and circle his finger achingly slowly.  
  
“Beautiful,” he says again, darting in to suck a lingering kiss from Xander’s lips before that thick, teasing digit pushes  _in_  with one smooth, quick, burning thrust. Xander arches up off the bed, with a stuttered “ahhhhh,” his eyes fluttering shut. Then he’s pushing back down on Charlie’s finger, and crying out when that finger seems to go immediately, unerringly to his prostate. He barely notices the soft, worshipful kisses wending their way from his lips, to his chin, and down his neck. Barely notices that Charlie, normally stoic  _Charlie_ , is bibbling and babbling:  
  
“So bloody gorgeous . . . never seen anything like you . . . you feel so good around me . . . so hot and tight . . . you flutter like butterflies . . . if I’d known, Xand, how bloody  _amazing_  you feel, I’d have tumbled you four months ago and never let you out of my bed. . . .”  
  
And so on.  
  
Sooner, rather than later, Xander finds himself adjusting to the burning stretch of two of Charlie’s fingers, and the relentless scissoring and prostate-stroking. Pretty colors and fireworks explode on the backs of his eyelids and he wonders when he’d closed them.  
  
Somehow, Xander manages to pry his eyelids apart and is met by Charlie’s hungry gaze. They stare into each other’s eyes for long moments, before Charlie smiles, almost smugly.  
  
“Ready for three?”  
  
“Ready for your  _cock_ ,” Xander purrs. Then purrs it again in English when Charlie’s eyes glaze over in that Xand-just-spoke-Parcels-tongue way. Smiling his own smug smile, he bears down on Charlie’s fingers, trapping them within him as he puts hands that had, moments before, been bunched in Charlie’s comforter, behind his knees. He draws his legs up to his chest as tightly as he can. “Fuck me, Charlie.  _Now_.”  
  
Charlie does some hissing of his own and removes his fingers when Xander relaxes his muscles. Muttering that same spell lube-spell again as he takes his cock in hand, Charlie braces himself above Xander with one strong arm.  
  
“Usually, I’m not this . . . hurried,” he apologizes, his eyes burning into Xander’s own. Xander bobs up awkwardly to plant an understanding kiss on Charlie’s lips.  
  
“Foreplay later. For now, I really need some  _serious_  deep dicking.”  
  
“You Americans certainly have a way with words,” Charlie notes, apropos of nothing—certainly not of the teasing way the blunt, slippery head of his cock nudges at Xander’s entrance.  
  
“We’re a classy, classy people,” Xander acknowledges breathlessly. “Now shut up, Weasley, and—oh,  _fuck, Charlie_!”  
  
“Merlin,  _Xand_ ,” Charlie sighs, pulling out a little after the first shallow thrust. Then he’s pushing forward again and again, till one final push takes him home, and he’s as deep as he can possibly get.  
  
Xander opens eyes he once more hadn’t been aware of closing, and Charlie does the same a second later. His gaze is both awed and molten, naked and openly possessive.  
  
“Keepin' you,” he says tersely, pulling out with torturous slowness, till only the head of his cock is in Xander. He follows this with another fast, powerful thrust that has Xander gasping and groaning.  
  
“God,  _yes_ , keep me, own me, never let me go, oh,  _Charlie_ —” Xander does some brief babbling of his own, clenching around Charlie despite feeling as if he’s about to be riven in two. Despite a spiraling pleasure that’s rapidly submerging him. “Don’t stop!”  
  
“Gonna stay inside you forever,” Charlie promises huskily. Another thrust drives Xander back and up the bed. Pillows scatter and Xander’s head bonks against the headboard.  _Hard_.  
  
“Ow! Damnit!”  
  
“Bloody  _hell_ —are you alright?” Charlie looks and sounds so comically aghast that in spite of the ache in his head, Xander laughs. A  _lot_.  
  
Charlie watches him, looking chagrined and a little put out. For a few seconds, anyway, then his eyes are rolling back as Xander’s muscles convulses around him.  
  
“Blimey, love, when you  _laugh_. . . .” he leans down to nuzzle Xander’s neck then kisses his lips. Xander’s too busy giggling and snorting to do more than moan happily when Charlie possesses his mouth with lips, teeth, and tongue. Then possesses the rest of him with hand and cock.  
  
“Mm, yes, please,” Xander sighs as the giggles and snorts dissipate under the assault of Charlie’s rough, slick hand on his cock and Charlie’s own cock driving into him again. This time, he braces his head against the headboard to begin with, so that it knocks loudly against the wall. Repeatedly, as Charlie thrusts into him harder and harder, faster and faster, his hand firm, hot, and perfect on Xander, thumb smearing precome across the head and down the shaft.  
  
Repeatedly, he takes Xander to the edge, only to tighten his hand around the base of Xander’s cock when he gets close. Charlie does this over and over for what feels like hours, until Xander’s face is wet with tears and he’s begging Charlie in English and Parcels-tongue to let him  _come_. . . .  
  
One final time, Xander gets so close he can feel the first tingles building at the base of his cock and his spine. He anticipates and feels Charlie’s hand close around the base of his cock, but only very lightly. He opens his eyes and tries his hardest to focus and when he does, it’s to Charlie staring down at him with that hungry, intent look on his flushed face.  
  
“Come for me, now, Xander,” he says almost calmly, like a man giving the time. But his body is still working in Xander’s, his hand stripping the Christ out of Xander’s aching, leaking cock. "Come."  
  
And Xander does, arching up off the bed once more with a long, wavering shout. It feels like everything, even his lifeforce, is drawn out of him, spurting all over their chests as Xander, strung bow-tight, shakes and shudders. Murmuring praise, Charlie continues to bury his cock deep. . . .  
  
Then Xander’s a limp, twitching, puddle of a wrung-out man, recovering from an orgasm that’s erased his sense, his cogent thoughts, and damn near himself. All he can do is moan encouragement as Charlie continues to use his over-taxed, over-sensitized body for his pleasure. Finally his eyes shut, his brow furrowing with concentration as he works towards his own climax. His body crashes against and into Xander’s own with slaps and squelches, and he’s got Xander bent nearly in half as he squeezes Xander’s knee with one hand and strokes Xander’s flagging, half-hard erection to life once more.  
  
“Too much,” Xander exhales weakly, tears leaking out of his eyes as his body starts tingling all over, on the brink of another orgasm. “Charlie, no, I'm not a machine. . . .”  
  
“Xand, oh,  _Xand_.” Charlie’s thrusts suddenly lose all their rhythm and rhyme, as does his hand, until he drives into Xander with one last, forceful thrust, then goes completely still but for the sudden,  _tangible_  pulse of his cock. Then he lets out a series of deep, hoarse yells and grunts as he pumps Xander full of liquid heat.  
  
Even after he’s done coming, he’s still apparently hard enough to keep fucking Xander, so he does, arhythmically, between panting, sloppy kisses and no-nonsense stroking.  
  
“Come for me again, Xand,” Charlie mouths on his cheek, and Xander, too blissed out to do anything like  _disobey_ , comes. Again. This time, the world is obliterated by white light.  
  


*

  
  
The first thing Xander knows is darkness.  
  
Not complete darkness, no. There’s faint, purple-grey light, enough to make out the shadowed bulk of furniture.  
  
The next thing Xander knows is a myriad of aches  _all_  over, and how dry his mouth and throat are.  
  
Lifting his head from the pillow just a bit, Xander rolls laboriously onto his back, noting the cool, unfamiliar slide of a heavy comforter. As a very specific ache makes itself heard louder than the others, he remembers . . .  _everything_.  
  
Flopping back into the pillows with a soft, sated sigh, his body goes utterly limp and he smiles, letting himself drowse as he replays the afternoon back to himself—not so much the dragon-part, as the part where he got fucked unconscious by one Charlie Weasley.  
  
And even though his body still feels like a wrung-out wreck, and is still fairly sensitive, Xander’s hand is soon straying to his cock, stroking gingerly as he replays his favorite bits (which is pretty much  _all_  the bits). A quick survey of the huge bed reveals what Xander had suspected: he’s alone. No Charlie.  
  
Ah, well.  
  
So he masturbates leisurely, mostly aimlessly, until he hears a door downstairs open then close. He perks up.  
  
Charlie?  
  
_Who else?_  Xander thinks wryly as footsteps sound on stairs, unhurried and certain. He sits up eagerly, his aches forgotten as the door to the room opens, letting in a tall, broad shadow.  
  
“ _Illuminatus_ ,” a soft voice says, and slowly, the room is filled with gentle, golden candlelight.  
  
“You’re awake,” Charlie says, smiling, and Xander returns it.  
  
“That, I am.” He eyes Charlie, taking in the flannel shirt, jeans, and workboots, and wondering how quickly he can convince Charlie to magic them off. “And you’re awfully dressed.”  
  
“Had some work to finish in the enclosure. We’ve got a new dragon that’s still too wild and angry to be set loose among the others.” Charlie shrugs. “I’ve been working with her myself, since none of the other keepers wants to.”  
  
Xander’s eyebrows shoot up. “Sounds dangerous," he says, frowning at the thought of Charlie in danger, period, let alone so soon after they found each other.  
  
“It is, after a fashion. But not as dangerous as it was when we first brought her in.” Another shrug, and Charlie’s eyes light up in a way Xander hopes to become very familiar with. “Merlin, you’re even more lovely by candlelight.”  
  
Putting his worry for Charlie away for the moment, Xander blushes as Charlie sits on the bed next to him, pushing the comforter down. Xander stops stroking himself, a little embarrassed, but then Charlie’s eyes meet his briefly. “No, don’t stop.”  
  
So Xander starts again, hesitantly. After a few seconds, Charlie’s hand covers his own, matching Xander’s pace and adding his own strength. Xander groans quietly, his breathing and heart-rate picking up.  
  
“Tell me what you think about when you touch yourself,” Charlie murmurs, his eyes flicking to Xander’s again. “Tell me what you’re thinking right now.”  
  
“That I want you to go down on me,” Xander says before he can stop himself. But Charlie smiles again.  
  
“That can be arranged,” he replies, removing Xander’s hand and pushing him back down to the bed. He kisses his way up Xander's thigh, nuzzling the soft skin there. He nips at Xander's balls just this side of painfully, then follows it with gentling kisses that wend their way up to the tip of Xander's cock, where they linger. And linger. And linger some more, before Charlie's swallowing him whole. . . .  
  
Afterwards, while Xander’s body is still humming from the hummer, he gets onto his hands and knees, and spreads his legs.  
  
Charlie, always swift on the uptake, gets the hint, and starts to undress. The flannel shirt gets all but ripped off and tossed to the side.  
  
“No. Keep ‘em on,” Xander says, glancing over his shoulder as Charlie unzips his jeans. He takes his cock out—he’s not wearing any underwear, a fact that blows Xander’s circuits one by one—and quirks an eyebrow.  
  
“You sure?”  
  
Xander smirks. “And the boots.”  
  
Smiling faintly, Charlie nods.  
  
He has Xander lubed up and prepared in less than five minutes. They both hiss as he slides in slow and smooth, his hands clenched on Xander’s hips just hard enough to bruise.  
  
It’s good.  _Unbelieveably_  so.  
  
This time, when Xander comes, a few seconds after Charlie does and shooting into Charlie’s hand, he stays conscious, stays with Charlie, who continues thrusting till he’s soft enough to slide out. Xander immediately feels empty. But then they automatically curl up on their backs, Xander snuggling close under Charlie’s arm, as if they've been doing so for years.  
  
As Xander watches intently, silently Charlie licks his own hand clean with reverent, unselfconscious relish.  
  
“Gosh, you’re wonderful,” Xander sighs finally, and Charlie laughs.  
  


*

  
  
After a short respite, Charlie magically cleans them up, and dresses them (also magically). He insists on giving Xander the rest of the tour, which isn’t very long, and ends with the livingroom.  
  
“And now, it’s time for supper,” Charlie says brightly as Xander peers at the moving photos. Most of the redheads bear a startling resemblance to Charlie, though some don’t. Some of them are posing on broomsticks, others trying to look solemn in robes of varying colors. “The family, such as they, are can wait.”  
  
“Okay . . . um, I’ll pitch in with supper, but you should know: I once burned water.”  
  
Charlie grins and pulls Xander close, kissing him. “So’ve I. Which is why the grounds employs several house elves to help with the cooking and cleaning.”  
  
“Um . . . 'house elves'?” Xander asks, picturing Keebler elves in maid’s uniforms with little trays of surprisingly bland cookies.  
  
“Yes. The house elf assigned to my cottage, Ying Ding—“  
  
“ _Ying Ding_?”  
  
Charlie sighs. “Don’t ask. Suffice it to say house elves never have names like Roger or Alice. Anyway, Ying Ding should be along shortly with supper. He sort of just pops in, gives the cottage a quick clean, then pops supper in. Erm,” Charlie pauses. “He’s not really used to me having guests so he may . . . chatter at you.”  
  
Still picturing Keebler elves, Xander's brows draw together. “And what does one say to a house elf?”  
  
This is worth a laugh. “Anything one doesn’t mind having a bunch of other house elves know.”  
  
“Gossipy, are they?”  
  
Charlie rolls his eyes. “You have no idea, love. You’ll be the talk of the house elf quarters by moonrise.”  
  
Warmed by that surely unconscious ‘love,’ (and a little bemused by the idea of elves gossiping about him) Xander wraps his arms around Charlie’s neck and pulls him in for another kiss. Charlie obliges. And obliges. And just for a change of pace, obliges some more, his hands wandering up and down Xander’s back and ass. Before long and despite the past several hours, they both start getting hard.  
  
“It’s like being a bloody teenager again,” Charlie whispers on his lips, and Xander winces, thinking of Bug Lady, and Incan Mummy Girl. And last, but not least, Faith Lehane.  
  
“You got laid a lot as a teenager?” He asks, feeling a twinge of jealousy.  
  
“No. But I was almost always hard around pretty, dark-eyed boys.”  
  
“Charmer.” Xander kisses Charlie again and angles his hips so they can rub against each other properly. And they do, and they are, until there’s a loud, cartoonish popping sound from behind Xander.  
  
Breaking off, they both look around. Xander’s startled to see, not three feet away, a wrinkly, bug-eyed creature that reminds him more than a little of Gollum in both features and stature. It’s wearing what looks like a pillow case, and watching them with unblinking surprise.  
  
“Oh! Ying Ding could come back later, Mister Charlie Weasley, sir—“  
  
“Er, no, now is fine, Ying Ding,” Charlie says, sounding a bit nonplussed for the first time in Xander’s acquaintance. His hands slide up from their clench on Xander’s ass, to his waist. “This is my friend, Xander. Xander, this is Ying Ding.”  
  
“Uh, pleased to meet you . . . Ying Ding,” Xander says, extricating himself from Charlie’s arms to turn and bend slightly, and offer his hand to the odd little creature standing so near.  
  
At once, Ying Ding looks alarmed. Xander’s about to apologize for having—scared? Offended?— _something_ ed Ying Ding, when the house elf bursts into tears and takes Xander’s hand in a surprisingly strong, two handed grip and pumps his arm. “Oh! Oh!” he keeps saying, sniffling and blinking. “Mister Xander is being so kind to strange elves! So kind! Oh!”  
  
“Uh . . . oh-kay. . . .” he glances back at Charlie, who looks amused. Xander shoots him a stern look, not finding the situation nearly so amusing. Especially since his arm is getting sore.  
  
“Ying Ding used to, er, work for the Malfoys, awhile back. He’s still not used to, well, common decency from wizards. Er, Muggles.” Charlie looks troubled for a moment.  
  
“Who or what are Malfoys and Muggles?” Xander asks through gritted teeth as he tries to free his hand from Ying Ding’s clingy grip.  
  
Charlie opens his mouth to explain—then closes it with a chuckle. “It’s a long story. And I’ll tell you some of it over supper.”  
  
Then he’s gently freeing Xander’s hand for him, and escorting a still-sobbing Ying Ding towards the kitchen with a clap on the back. "It'll be alright, mate," he says soothingly as the little creature honks and snorts into the hem of his pillow case.  
  
They leave Xander to stand in the livingroom and ponder the strange turn his life has quite suddenly taken.  _Wonderful-strange_ , but strange, nonetheless.  
  
“Hurry, love, before the pumpkin juice gets warm!” Charlie calls from the kitchen, and Xander smiles, feeling a huge, warm welling-up inside himself, that makes it almost impossible to breathe.  
  
“Okay!” He shakes his head then replays what Charlie said. “I’ll be right—I’m sorry, did you just say  _pumpkin juice_?!”  
  


*

  
  
Xander awakens the next morning at sunrise, to Charlie spooned up behind him and holding him tight, grinding against his ass and breathing heavily on his shoulder.  
  
“Yeah,” he says sleepily, shifting about a little till he feels Charlie’s fingers on him, then in him, slick and efficient, preparing him quickly, but thoroughly. Soon, Xander’s not so sleepy anymore.  
  
_Soon_ , Xander’s on his stomach, breathing heavily himself as Charlie sinks into him with a protracted groan.  
  
“Bloody  _heaven_ ,” he breathes in Xander’s hair, spread over him like a blanket made of Weasley. He undulates his hips lazily, thrusting sporadically. “Could stay like this forever.”  
  
“Sounds like a plan,” Xander agrees, pinned under Charlie’s weight and loving it.  
  
Unfortunately they can’t and don’t stay like that forever. Eventually Charlie can’t keep up that languid pace any longer, nor does Xander want him to.  _Eventually_  Charlie’s crammed a pillow under Xander’s hips and is thrusting in and out methodically, changing up his angle until Xander lets out a high-pitched keen and starts pushing back against him, meeting every thrust with one of his own.  
  
It’s so good, Xander’s near tears by the time he comes, Charlie’s panted  _yes_ es in his ear like music.  
  
When they’ve regained their breaths, somewhat, Xander laughs. “Wow. That was some ‘good morning.’”  
  
“Mm.” Charlie kisses Xander’s nape, all the way down his back, to his ass, right cheek then left, then—  
  
“GAH!” Xander yelps as Charlie’s tongue goes where no man’s tongue has gone before. He has to glance over his shoulder to make sure he’s not imagining it. And he’s not. He’s really, really _not_.  
  
Charlie tickles and teases, all hot, wet talent. Till Xander’s humping the pillow again and pushing back onto Charlie’s tongue and begging: “Please, please. . . .”  
  
And he keeps begging for he doesn’t  _know_  what, until Charlie rolls him over with a laugh and sucks his cock till he comes again, seeing whole galaxies worth of stars as Charlie swallows and swallows around him.  
  
“Best. Boyfriend.  _Ever_ ,” Xander avers, grinning up at the ceiling as Charlie licks him clean.  
  


*

  
  
“If you’re at loose ends for today, I could introduce you to some of the other keepers and dragons. . . .”  
  
Xander looks up from where his head is pillowed on Charlie’s chest, over Charlie’s strong, slow heartbeat. If there’s an expression to be read on that square, friendly face, Xander can’t. “That’d be great, actually. If all the dragons—and the keepers—are as cool as Percy. . . .”  
  
Charlie smiles, and it’s like the sun’s come up for a second time. “Well, I can’t  _guarantee_  they’re as cool as Percy. He’s a special case. But they’re very worth meeting, nonetheless.”  
  
“Okay. I’m in,” Xander says, and it earns him a soft kiss. “But first, breakfast?”  
  
“Oh, definitely,” Charlie says, snorting. “Merlin knows we’ve both used up enough protein over the past day.”  
  
“Yeah,” Xander agrees dreamily, anticipating the next time they can use up some protein.  
  
Then Charlie’s sitting them both up and tugging a protesting Xander out of bed and into his arms.  
  
“Ying Ding’s probably brought something brilliant for brekkies,” he wheedles. Xander whines.  
  
“Couldn’t you just . . . magic it up here?”  
  
“Could I? Yes. Will I? No.”  
  
“Char-lieeeee. . . .”  
  
Charlie shakes his head. “If we stay in bed we’ll just wind up shagging all day—“  
  
“And what a pity  _that_  would be.”  
  
“—and we have places to go and people to meet.” Charlie actually blushes a little. “I really did promise some of the blokes yesterday that if you were of a mind, I’d bring you ‘round to meet them. They've actually been waiting to meet you for some time.”  
  
Xander's eyebrows shoot up. "You've . . . you've told your friends and coworkers about me?"  
  
"Of course." Charlie snorts. "They're starting to think I made you up, however."  
  
"As if you could make up someone as awesome as the Xand-man." Xander bites his lip, trying not to feel as anxious as he is. “Am I gonna get the Shovel Speech from them individually or all at once?”  
  
“The  _what_?”  
  
Xander grins and wraps his arms around a confused looking Charlie. “Never mind . . . c’mon, let’s go see if Ying Ding’s left breakfast.”  
  
“He most assuredly has. I heard the pop," Charlie informs him.  
  
“Then let’s skedaddle.”  
  
But they both stand there, staring into each others’ eyes. Then kissing. And touching. At least till Charlie mutters: “ _Accio_  wand!”  
  
Suddenly there’s a length of cool wood pressing into Xander’s back along with Charlie’s hand.  
  
“ _Apparate_!”  
  
With a wrenching jerk that’s all in Xander’s head and gut, they’re standing in Charlie’s kitchen.  
  
“ _Guh_. A little warning, babe,” he moans, turning green and leaning against Charlie, waiting for the faint, sea-sick feeling to pass. Surprisingly, it does rather quickly.  
  
“Sorry.” Charlie smiles apologetically, then kisses Xander’s forehead. “Looks like there’s enough food here to feed a horse.”  
  
“Which should almost be enough to satisfy me,” Xander says, following Charlie’s gaze to the kitchen table. Which is absolutely laden with food: scrambled eggs, toast, bacon, sausage, waffles, fresh fruit, and oatmeal. And the ubiquitous pumpkin juice. It’s almost intimidating, all that foodm, but then, Xander’s always loved a challenge. He licks his lips and pats his stomach. “Fuck-a-duck, Ying Ding out-did himself!”  
  
“I’ll say.” Charlie squeezes Xander’s waist and leads him toward the table. “Shall we, love?”  
  
Flushing with pleasure, Xander smiles. “We shall.”  
  
And they do.


	4. The Dragon-Whisperer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Xander and Charlie spend the morning in bed and the afternoon with the dragons and their keepers. Mostly PWP.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm not Joss or J.K. But oh, if I was. . . .

  
Breakfast is a mostly silent affair, both Xander and Charlie wolfing down their food with few pauses for conversation.  
  
Xander, after watching Charlie polish off several glasses of cold pumpkin juice, has never been so glad of a cold pitcher of milk in his life. He's already had three glasses, just as a reaction to all the pumpkin juice being had.  
  
But the upside is, gross as watching his lover drink pumpkin juice is, Xander's going to  _love_ sucking the taste of pumpkin from his lips later.  
  
Ah . . . later. . . .  
  
Xander twiddles his bare toes against Charlie's ankle, and receives a surprised, questioning smile in return.  
  
“Wanna spend the day in bed, handsome?”  
  
Charlie nods—then catches himself and shakes his hed. “Remember, I was going to show you off to my mates, today, so they stop thinking I've made you up.”  
  
Xander pouts, pushing the last piece of his flapjacks around the besauced plate. “Can't we do that tomorrow? Or the day after?”  
  
Charlie sighs, reaching across the table for Xander's hand. He links their fingers, stroking Xander's with his thumb. “You forget: I have work this afternoon, anyway.”  
  
More pouting, worthy of the Dawnster, if Xander does say so himself (and he does). “Then we could spend the morning in bed, and meet your work friends at work and your other friends afterwards.” Xander tries on his puppiest of puppy faces—honestly, it'd work better if Xander didn't have the whole heterochromatic eyes thing going on, but he's always been adept at playing the hand he was dealt—and moves the twiddling slowly up Charlie's calf. “Admit it: that sounds like a plan and a half, doesn't it? Plus, there's all the naughty times we get to have till, like, three o'clock.”  
  
Charlie snorts. “Ha! Try noon.”  
  
Xander bats his eyes. “Two?”  
  
“Noon.”  
  
“One?” The pout makes a reappearance.  
  
“Noo—alright, twelve-thirty.” Charlie capitulates, and Xander whoops, forsaking the remains of his breakfast to get up and circle the table. He slides his arms around Charlie's neck and kisses his cheek. Charlie's big hands cover his biceps and he tilts his face up to take one of Xander's kisses on the lips.  
  
Xander grins, and after a minute of Upside-Down-Kisses-of-Infinite-Goodness, lets himself be pulled down onto Charlie's lap. He wriggles happily on what he finds there.  
  
“ _This_  doesn't feel like twelve-thirty to me, Mr. Weasley,” he whispers huskily, only to feel Charlie shiver. It's only then that he realizes he's slipped into that Parcels-Tongue. So he repeats himself, this time in good ol' American, each word punctuated by kisses to Charlie's stubbly throat.  
  
“We've got another new dragon coming in, today, Xand. I'm there for every dragon we bring in, gettin' m' hands dirty like all the other lads.” Charlie cups Xander's face in those rough, now familiar hands. “It's kind of necessary, or else I'd spend the rest of the day making love to you.”  
  
Looking into Charlie's eyes, Xander sighs happily as he's held firmly and ground up against. “Sweet-talker. Okay, let's get this show on the road. We only have, like, four hours of nookie before Take Your Xander To Work Day starts.”  
  
Humor flashes in Charlie's brown eyes and he leans in for a kiss that ends with him swinging Xander up into his arms as he stands. Xander grabs on for dear life with a startled gasp. Then a laugh as Charlie marches them toward the staircase.  
  
Soon, all that's left in the kitchen is the distant sound of Xander's giggles and groans and a mostly finished breakfast. Then it's just the distant giggles and groans as breakfast disappears with a  _pop_  and a flash.  
  


*

  
  
“You're awfully good at this,” Xander notes, face pillowed on his forearms, eyes closed, mind and body almost completely lost to the tortuously indelicate sensations of pleasure assaulting his body. From behind him, Charlie grunts softly, sending a ghost of a breath drifting across Xander's sensitized entrance. “I mean, Olympic gold medal good.  _Great_ , really.”  
  
Charlie's tongue rasps less than gently across Xander's puckered, twitching opening and Xander cries out, clutching one of Charlie's insanely soft pillows like it has the power to save him. His thus far neglected cock, smothered by blanket and mattress, struggles to stand on end even as Xander humps the bed, looking for relief.  
  
Then he's not doing much of anything besides moaning. Charlie holds Xander's hips to the bed firmly, spreading Xander's cheeks with his thumbs. There are several vulnerable and relieved moments when Xander can feel Charlie's regard and approval . . . his desire and possessiveness.  
  
Then Charlie's lips brush him in the softest of kisses before the tip of his tongue pushes past the first tight ring of muscle.  
  
Xander hisses—actually  _hisses_ , he recognizes. Not just random sounds, but  _Parcels-Tongue sounds_ —drawing his legs up and further out even as Charlie spreads him wider, his warm, damp face pressing closer and closer as his tongue laps deeper and deeper.   
  
“Don't stop—oh, God, please don't stop. . . .” Xander moans, all sighs and sibilances. And Charlie _doesn't_  stop—not even when Xander, hard and aching with it, unable to find any friction or release, begs him to.  
  
Charlie doesn't stop till he's damned good and  _ready_.  
  
And when he  _is_  ready to stop, it's only because he's reached the same point Xander has—or so Xander surmises dimly, for as soon as the licking and lapping stops, or so it seems, there's something thick and blunt pressing against his slick, throbbing entrance.  
  
Xander raises his sweaty, tear-stained face from his arms and glances over his shoulder just in time to see Charlie, who's gone brick red all over that gorgeous, intimidating body—especially that gorgeous, intimidatingly erect cock of his—arched over him and bracketing Xander's thighs with his own. His hands, gentle, but implacable, grasp Xander's hips and pull them steadily backwards, even as he lines himself up for the first thrust forward.  
  
Then Xander's crying out in delicious agony as Charlie breaches the guardian muscle without stopping for pleasantries—instead pushing forward steadily, until what must be all of his huge cock is seated within Xander.  
  
For a few moments, he rests there, his head lowered to Xander's shoulder, his breath coming in hot, harsh gusts. His chest is pressed against Xander's back, each beat of his heart keeping time with Xander's, and he nuzzles Xander's hair.  
  
“Love you,” he murmurs, then he's pulling out fast and rough, only to thrust back in the same way. Xander wails, fingers bunching in the pillow before coming up to grip the headboard as Charlie puts his back and his hips into it. Before too long, he's found Xander's prostate and does his damnedest to batter it beyond recognition.  
  
“ _Charlie-Charlie-Charlie_ ,” Xander chants, struggling, scrambling to get to his knees. Charlie, bodyreader that he is, pulls him upright by his slippery hips. Xander relinquishes his grasp on the headboard and positions them on the bed in a way that he dearly hopes will bear his body-weight. Then he's utterly beyond hope as one of Charlie's hands slides around to his abdomen, then down to take his turgid cock in hand.  
  
Despite the furious, fast, hard fucking he's receiving, the reach-around Xander gets is slow, tantalizing, teasing.  
  
“Talk to me in Parseltongue, Xand,” Charlie finally breathes in his hair, his hand light and agonizingly  _right_. “Tell me how it feels to have me inside you.”  
  
Xander, momentarily at a loss for words, gasps as Charlie rams against his prostate extra hard, the hand still on Xander's hip tight enough to leave bruises.  
  
“God, Charlie, it feels—like I'm being split in two, but in a really  _good_  way. You're so big and hard and powerful. It's like you're marking your territory—fucking your ownership into me. It's like—” Xander's turned on by and caught up in his own hisses and sighs that he doesn't realize that while Charlie may not understand Parcels-Tongue, he can damn-sure pick up the gist of what Xander means. Of what Xander's  _body_  is saying. Especially when Xander's groaning and arching back against him, his muscles clenching greedily around Charlie's cock.  
  
“Fuck! Bloody  _fuck_!” Charlie's saying, his thrusts losing their rhythm and rhyme. But even though they've become erratic, his thrusts have lost none of their power. His body is hot and flush against Xander's, till Xander doesn't know where he ends and Charlie begins. Then Charlie stills for a moment, Xander's name falling from his lips like a prayer, before he thrusts once, twice, three times more, and comes with a palpable series of throbs. Xander can feel every hot, wet pulse within him and something like static electricity dancing along his hot-cold skin. . . .  
  
“ _Unh_ ,” Charlie manages when the throbbing and coming has stopped. Then: “Bloody  _hell_ , that was—oh, suffering snidgets, sorry, love,” when he realizes he's collapsed on Xander who, for all that he's been fucked, filled, and flattened in relatively short order, is still in a fine state of botheration. When Charlie levers himself off of Xander and to the right, Xander immediately rolls over, hot-eyed and still hard. “Don't be sorry . . . gonna finish me off?”  
  
Charlie grins, and leans over to kiss Xander's forehead, nose, and mouth, one hand reaching out to palm Xander's painfully hard cock. Xander arches up into the light touch, breath caught in a gasp, lower lip caught between his teeth. Charlie chuckles and kisses a path down Xander's neck, to his right nipple, which he bites and worries at until Xander's hands are in Charlie's hair, holding his head close and once more begging him not to stop.  
  
Meanwhile, the hand on Xander's cock has turned serious about its work, Charlie's grip having become tight and controlled, his thumb swiping deliberately across the head of Xander's cock.  
  
“Oh,  _Charlie_ ,” Xander breathes, and Charlie smiles, continuing the path of kisses further south, stopping to press a lingering kiss to Xander's navel, before making its way to the nest of dark hair not far below.  
  
“Yes,  _yes_ ,” Xander begs or demands—he's not really sure and doesn't really care—as Charlie's takes that path of kisses right down his cock, to the tip, which he then licks like an ice cream cone. “Oh,  _fuck_ , Charlie—gonna—”  
  
“Mmhm.” Charlie licks the tip again, raspier and slower than before, and Xander squawks like a dying crow. He doesn't even realize that Charlie's spread his legs again and is sliding sure fingers back past his perineum—hasn't the faintest notion of what Charlie's naughty fingers are doing until they're already twisting and scissoring their way inside him, pushing ever deeper and feeling for his prostate.  
  
No, Xander's rather too caught up in the way Charlie's hoovering the tip of his cock off, making the occasional, obscene slurping noises. That's more than enough to keep Xander's mind occupied, until Charlie's fingers strike gold and Xander arches up off the bed, shoving his cock down Charlie's throat. To his credit, Charlie only gags a little, and more importantly, keeps pressing against Xander's prostate and pressing against it until Xander's body gives in the most ultimate of surrenders.  
  
“ _Charlieeeeee_ —“ he cries out as he comes, massaged and caressed by the soft, wet, hot silk of Charlie's throat. All coherent thought—all non-coherent thought—is lost to a climax that hits like a freight train, and still continues to build and build, until Xander's too caught up in it to fight it for what feels like his very life. His surrender is, at this point, complete. But his body, never having been known for knowing when to stop, still keeps trying to come.  
  
“No more . . . no more. . . .” he's moaning in Parcels-Tongue even as his body convulses and shakes, and Charlie crawls up the bed to hold him close and tight.  
  
“Xand, it's okay. I've got you,” he says gently, kissing Xander's cheek, then his shoulder. “It's okay, I'm here.”  
  
And maybe, on some level, Xander hears this, because his body finally,  _finally_  stops shaking and twitching and simply goes limp on the bed, in Charlie's arms. The world ceases to exist for a brief while and that's . . . okay. Because Charlie will be be there when it  _does_  start to exist again.  
  


*

  
  
“Xander?” Charlie murmurs on Xander's forehead, then leans back just enough to look at him—  
  
Xander's completely unconscious. But smiling.  
  
Smiling to  _himself_ , Charlie kisses that smile and lays Xander down gently, quietly saying a cleaning spell over them both. Then he rolls them onto their sides and spoons up behind Xander, drawing him close.  
  
“Bloody  _hell_ , but I'm  _good_ ,” he whispers, grinning as Xander begins to snore in his arms. “ _Accio_ duvet.”  
  


*

  
  
“. . . and they're a bunch of smartarses, so expect a fair amount of ribbing,” Charlie adds as he zips Xander's windbreaker.  
  
Xander, still in Dreamy Afterglow Land, simply nods and smiles and says: “Ribbing. Check. Check-ski. The Checkster. El Checkerino.”  
  
Charlie gives him a worried once over. “And you're sure you're alright, love? You seem a little. . . .” that worried look becomes a confused one, as if Charlie can't find the correct—or at least a non-insulting—word. For Xander  _looks_ , with the unhealed hickeys and assorted love-marks on his neck and the starry look in his eyes, like a man who just got the rogering of his life.  
  
Xander knows this, and has no intentions of looking any other way for the time being.  
  
But he supposes it's time to pull himself together at least a little, so that he's not a complete dweeb when he meets Charlie's friends.  
  
“I'm fine, Charlie.” He grins and leans in to peck Charlie's lips, unsurprised when Charlie's hands settle on his waist and hold him closer for a longer kiss. “Mm, don't start something you can't finish.”  
  
“Who said anything about 'can't'?” Charlie pulls Xander flush against him, and sways them both to music only he can hear. His hands slide around to Xander's ass and he has the interested beginnings of an erection. “More like . . . 'won't until later.'”  
  
“Spoil-sport.” Xander tries to pout, but said pout is easily replaced by the blissed-out smile he's been wearing since he woke up in Charlie's brawny arms. “C'mon, let's got meet the dragons and the dragon-keepers.”  
  
“Atta-boy, that's the spirit,” Charlie kisses Xander tenderly, then escorts him down the stairs and hallway, and out the front door.  
  
The air is surprisingly not chilly, for as high up in the mountains as they are. The noon sun shines down hotly on the land—the first sallies of a warm, aggressive Spring. The air smells of new grass and wildflowers, and something very faint: dry, almost metallic. . . .  
  
 _Must be the dragons,_  Xander thinks as Charlie's arm slides around his waist. He lets himself be steered deeper into the valley, toward the outbuildings and larger structures that seem to ring the lake that stands about a quarter of a mile distant.  
  
“We'll be arriving a couple of hours before the arrival of the new dragon, so there'll be a bit of lag time, during which you'll be the center of attention—“  
  
“Which I  _love_  being, by the way,” Xander cuts in to say. Charlie snorts.  
  
“Well, I did talk you up a bit to the lads—I think they'll be surprised to find you don't walk on water.”  
  
“Will they be surprised that I speak Parcels-Tongue?”  
  
Charlie's absent smile fades and he halts their forward progression, turning Xander to face him and looking him in the eyes as seriously as he ever has. “Erm . . . actually that may be something you want to keep close to the vest until we know more about  _why_  you can speak Parseltongue.”  
  
Though he's tempted to make some sort of stupid joke, Xander finally nods, and looks away. “Okay. No bragging about being bilingual. Check.”  
  
“Just until we get everything sorted out,” Charlie promises, reaching up to cup Xander's face with one rough hand, his thumb slowly brushing Xander's lower lip. “They're going to have questions enough, as it is, what with you being a Muggle  _and_  an American, but at least those'll be questions you can answer. Besides,” Charlie's voice drops into a low rumble and the serious light in his eyes changes. “I sort of like that Parseltongue is something you only speak to  _me_ , when we're . . . you know.”  
  
Xander finds himself grinning as Charlie blushes smiles almost shyly. “Best. Boyfriend. Ever,” he hisses, just to make Charlie shiver and groan.  
  


*

  
  
The main outbuilding is  _huge_ —the size of a football field, at least, with enormous stalls filled with sweet-smelling hay. Some of the stalls are occupied by dragons of differing looks and sizes. Most o the stalls—about three-quarters—are empty.  
  
In and out of the occupied stalls bustle men and women, the “lads” Charlie'd mentioned. They don't exactly look the way Xander's always pictured witches and wizards, but then again, neither did Willow or Ethan Rayne. Or Giles, for all that he denied he was any kind of wizard.  
  
No, these people all seem to be Charlie's age or younger, dressed in what appear to be denim and flannel, t-shirts and sweats. There isn't a robe or pointy hat in sight.  
  
Though every one of them has a wand, it looks like, and is performing some spell or other with it. In fact, Xander's attention's been caught by the way a large crate, the size of a school bus, starts to dance its merry way across the space, obviously magicked by a woman in jeans and a t-shirt that says  _Holyhead Harpies_  on the back. Underneath that . . . logo? . . . decal of women in robes, on brooms, cavorting and flying.  
  
Crate forgotten, he stares at the sweatshirt until someone hails Charlie from behind them.  
  
“Gavin!” Charlie says, turning them around, with the hand that isn't around Xander held out for shaking. The man approaching them, from out of the first stall, wand in a holder at his side—dressed, for all the world, like any other young guy in jeans and a faded black t-shirt that bears the legend  **Screaming Trolls**  on it in orange and yellow letters that sluggishly ooze green as Xander watches—is small, dark, and wiry, with enormous dark blue eyes that make him look far younger than what Xander imagines is his actual age.  
  
Eyes on Xander, Gavin shakes Charlie's hand heartily, then offers his hand to Xander.  
  
“Gavin, this is—“ Charlie begins, somewhat proudly.  
  
“Xander! Of course it is. We were beginning to suspect he'd made you up, you know,” Gavin replies in a Scottish accent so thick it should come with a side of haggis, Xander thinks, not bothering to hide his smile.  
  
“It's a pleasure to meet you, Gavin.” Gavin's hand feels a lot like Charlie's: rough, calloused, and scarred, even up his wrist and arm, like Charlie's. Only, instead of gingery hair sparsely covering it, Gavin's arm is blanketed in dark hair that makes the bare scars stand out all the more.  
  
“Likewise, Xander.” Gavin's grin flashes out, wide and white, and then he's nodding toward the stall he'd just come out of. “You two are just in time. One of the first dragons ever to grace this sanctuary just became a mum.”  
  
“Norbert's egg hatched?” Charlie asks, seeming quite surprised. “So soon? Is the kid alright?”  
  
“Ah, he's fine, just fine. All of him's accounted for,” Gavin reassures, and as they get to the huge stall, Xander finds himself staring at a smallish—compared to Percy, anyway—dragon with black scales, bronzy horns, and black ridges on her back. Humongoues black eyes, like cat's eyes, stare suspiciously at the newcomers. She crouches protectively over what looks like a version of her in miniature, mewling and crawling about on the fresh hay.  
  
“What kind of dragon is she?” Xander asks breathlessly, smiling at both mother and baby. He can all but hear Gavin's eyebrows shoot up.  
  
“She's a Norwegian Ridgeback. Her name's Norbert—er, we didn't name her, but it's the only name she'll, er, answer to, after a fashion,” Charlie says, squeezing Xander briefly.  
  
“She's beautiful,” Xander exhales, admiring the way her scales and ridges shine like polished obsidian. “So's little . . . um, has he been named yet?”  
  
“Named? Hah, we haven't been able to get close enough to determine a sex! Norbert's very protective of, er, him.” Gavin's mouth purses thoughtfully as he observes mother and child. “What makes you think he's a male?”  
  
“I dunno, it's just a good guess,” Xander shrugs, blushing, unable to explain even to himself how he'd known the baby dragon was a he, just as he'd have known Norbert is a she without having heard Gavin mention her egg hatching. He glances at Charlie, who's gazing at him thoughtfully. “There was at least a fifty percent chance I'd be right.”  
  
“Thhhhhat's not hhhhhow percentages work, hhhhhuman.”  
  
At the almost offended huff of gall and smoke, Xander returns his gaze to Norbert, who though still crouched protectively over her child, has swung her head around to regard Xander. Gavin and Charlie discreetly reach for their wands as her head draws close enough that Xander can see for all her relative smallness, she's still the size of a sleek tour bus. Her pupils are the size of Xander's head and her head is the size of a Smart car.  
  
She huffs again, and it steams all the wrinkles out of Xander's clothes and breaks him out in a light sweat.  
  
“So, not only are dragons better than me at sarcasm, but they've got me beat at math, too. That's just perfect,” Xander says with a huff of his own. “I don't suppose you're any good at the Snoopy Dance?”  
  
“Thhhhhe whhhhhat?”  
  
 _Well, at least I still have that,_  Xander thinks wryly, holding up his hands non-threateningly. When Norbert shows no signs of hitting him with fiery wrath, he says: “Your scales are lovely. May I touch them?”  
  
Norbert's eyes narrow for a few moments, then she blinks and nods once. “You may,” she sighs regally. At her feet, the baby, about the size of a cat, hiccups a small burst of flame that sets the hay immediately in front of him ablaze. The baby trills in alarm, backing away.  
  
“ _Stingueo_  . . . blimey, Charlie, you told us he was a Muggle!” Gavin accuses as the flame goes out with a little hiss and a puff of smoke.  
  
“Er,” Charlie says almost nervously, and Xander suddenly remembers his promise to Charlie, about not letting on that he knows Parcels-Tongue. But, as he pets Norbert's armored snout, almost as hot as the outside of an oven, yet still cool enough for a prolonged stroke, he finds that he can't be too sorry. Not when Norbert's eyes have fluttered almost shut and she's rumbling happily. Not when he, Xander Harris, is petting a  _dragon_.  
  
“— _is_  a Muggle . . . we  _think_. We just don't know where the Parseltongue fluency came from. It just started yesterday, when he met Percy,” Charlie is saying, sighing. “We're going to look into it as soon as possible.”  
  
“Not a bad idea, that,” Gavin agrees sagely. “A Muggle who can speak Parseltongue is definitely worth looking into. Will you take him to the Ministry?”  
  
This catches Xander's attention, and he looks from Norbert, to Charlie and Gavin. “The Ministry of Silly Walks?”  
  
Charlie looks blank, but Gavin laughs. “No, the Ministry of Magic! Though I don't suppose you'll have heard of it. Few Muggles even know it exists.”  
  
Charlie's arm tightens around him. “I'd thought that instead of dragging Xander to the Ministry to be poked and prodded and questioned, I'd bring my friends Hermione and Harry in to . . . consult,” he reassures Xander.  
  
“Blimey!” Gavin exclaims again, his eyes gone saucer-wide. “Harry Potter! Hermione Weasley! Are you bringing them in today? Have I got time to run home and get my Famous Witch and Wizard Collector's Cards? I've got about a thousand of Harry Potter and a couple hundred of Mrs. Weasley—do you think they'll sign them?”  
  
Xander, recognizing a fellow fanboy when he sees one, smirks to himself, then wonders who the Hell Charlie's friends are that they have their own collector's cards.  
  
 _That's something to ask about later_ , he supposes. When he's not having the most surreal experience of his life: petting a dragon that's practically purring under his ministrations.  
  
But the poor baby dragon is mewling, obviously feeling left out.  
  
“Your baby is lovely, too,” Xander notes, waving at the little dragon to get his attention. When the baby looks at him, he smiles. The baby mewls again and tries to hide behind one of his mother's legs, but still peering out at Xander with huge, dark eyes. “What will you name him?”  
  
Norbert rumbles, a dragon chuckle that sends steam and heat everywhere.  
  
“Most hhhhhumans could not pronounce thhhhhe name I hhhhhave given hhhhhim.” Then she chokes out a few cough-like syllables that somehow manage to hiss and sigh at the same time as they growl.  
  
Even Xander has a little trouble wrapping his throat around it, and after several tries, comes as close as he's going to get in his lifetime.  
  
“Would you mind if we called him Norbert, Jr.—or Junior?” he asks delicately, clearing his throat. “Since we can't really pronounce his actual name without rupturing our throats?”  
  
Norbert's eyes narrow again as she thinks it over . . . then she nods once more. “It is acceptable.”  
  
“Cool.” Xander grins, and gives Norbert a final pat. When she returns her attention to her son, Xander turns to Charlie and Gavin. “Okay, guys, she says it's cool if you call the baby Norbert, Jr. Or just Junior, since pronouncing the name she gave him? Is as painful as it is futile, and—uh—hi,” Xander finishes with a nervous laugh, because instead of just Charlie and Gavin, he and Norbert had somehow gained an audience of, oh, just every dragon-keeper in the place.  
  
All of them are watching Xander with wide-eyed curiosity.  
  
“Xander, these are the lads and ladies I work with. Lads, ladies, this is Xander,” Charlie says laconically. And for a moment, there's utter silence, except for Junior's mewls.  
  
Then the whole mass of wizards erupt with questions. Except for Gavin, who's still gushing about Harry Potter and Hermione Weasley.  
  


*

  
  
Charlie shuts the door to his office and leans against it heaving a sigh of relief.  
  
Xander, having come into the office a few steps ahead of him, leans on the parchment-riddled desk and smiles sheepishly.  
  
“So that went . . . not as expected, I'm guessing.”  
  
Charlie's eyebrows shoot up. “Not quite, love. It didn't occur to me that any of the  _dragons_ would talk to  _you_ —let alone Norbert! She's reclusive, even for a dragon—and the others are only marginally better.”  
  
“So . . . you're saying Percy is the exception? 'Cause he was pretty chatty.”  
  
Charlie nodded. “For a wild dragon, Percy is indeed the exception. Very amiable toward humans. There are dragons that were raised  _among_  humans—such as Norbert—that don't like them as well as Percy does. It's a conundrum.” He shrugs, and crosses the room to pull Xander into his arms. Xander goes willingly, and wraps his arms around Charlie's neck.  
  
“Did I freak your friends out too much, do you think?” he asks quietly, and Charlie smiles a little.  
  
“Not at all. I'd thought they might react . . . diffidently, to someone who speaks Parseltongue—perhaps be a bit reserved. But they were the exact opposite. I think I even heard Batchelder say something about hiring you on here as a consultant.” Charlie seems bemused.  
  
“Hmm . . . Xander Harris . . . Dragon-Whisperer.” Xander leans in to nuzzle Charlie's neck. Charlie smells like soap and pumpkin and dragons. It's a good combination of smells. “That has a certain ring to it.”  
  
“It does, does it?” Charlie turns Xander's face up to his for a kiss. “Dragon- _Charmer_ , is more like it. And Wizard-Charmer, let's not forget.”  
  
“One wizard charmed does not a charmer make, Charlie.”  
  
“Did you forget all the wizards and witches out there who're probably still singing your praises to each other?” Charlie kisses onto Xander's lips. “You're an all-around charmer.”  
  
“Says the guy who didn't know me in high school,” Xander quips, then sits on the edge of the desk, pulling Charlie close. “Wanna have sexy-times in your office till the new dragon arrives?”  
  
Charlie laughs. “Is sex all you think about?”  
  
“When we've been having near-misses for over four months? Yes, yes it is.” Xander nods solemnly, unbuttoning the collar of Charlie's plaid shirt. Then he pauses. “Wait, will they be able to . . .  _hear us_?” Xander nods toward the door.  
  
Charlie frees one hand to touch the wand holstered to his jeans. “ _Sonus Probationem_  . . . not with a little soundproofing, they won't.”  
  
Xander grins. “That's a handy little talent you've got there, Mr. Weasley.”  
  
“It has its moments.” Charlie returns the grin. “You're turning me into a raging sex-fiend, you know?”  
  
“Well, that's the  _best kind_  of sex-fiend.” Xander continues unbuttoning Charlie's shirt, then runs his hands up and down the ginger-haired, well-defined chest said unbuttoning reveals. Then he scoots back on the desk, displacing scrolls and parchment, tomes and texts. Some fall to the floor, the rest just get crumpled and upset.  
  
“This is very important paperwork we'll be sullying, Xander,” Charlie tsks, his lips twitching with a repressed smile, and Xander rolls his eyes. “Requisitioning forms, and funding forms, and—somewhere in the pile—a form to renew our dragon reservation license, and—“  
  
“Priorities, Weasley, priorities.” Xander's hands tug on the waist of Charlie's jeans before unbuttoning the fly. Charlie's cock immediately pokes out because  _Charlie's_  not wearing any underwear.  
  
Xander looks up into his lover's eyes.  
  
“Really, you  _are_  the best boyfiend ever,” he says besottedly, and totally alright with that. Charlie's repressed smile twitches into a full-on grin, his brown eyes lighting up.  
  
“Say it again?” he asks hopefully. “This time in Parseltongue?”  
  


End

 


	5. Meet the Weasleys

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While overseeing the importation of a new dragon, something goes wrong and Xander is injured.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm not her.

_When something goes wrong where dragons are involved,_  Xander has time to think before all the shouting and running begins in earnest.  _It goes very,_ very _wrong._  
  
Then he's shouting and running, like everyone else. Only, unlike most of the runners, he's running  _toward_  the clutch of fire and twisted metal near the lake, instead of away from it. Toward his lover and the other wizards somewhere near the conflagration.  
  
Toward the almost preternaturally loud roaring coming from the center of this mess.  
  
Xander had been told the dragon was something called a Ukrainian Ironbelly—had only seen glimpses of it from inside it's close-barred metal cage. Flashes of metallic grey, and red, furious eyes. Cunning eyes, even from a distance. Eyes just waiting for their chance. . . .  
  
And apparently not in vain, for they had gotten their chance at—whatever the dragon thought it could do against fifteen armed wizards and witches. It'd waited, bided its time with the pretense of tractability—even Gavin had remarked, when the cage had been  _Apparated (teleportation by any other name_ , Xander had thought) to the sandy shore, that the dragon within seemed strangely calm—and struck when the wizards and witches, lulled by this false quiescence, had taken their magical wards off the cage.  
  
From the safety of Charlie's office, where Charlie had insisted he stay, Xander had been able to see his lover approach the cage, wand held out defensively, but not especially warily, at the ready. Xander had felt a surge of pride and desire at how manly and brave Charlie was, and how absolutely  _edible_  he looked in his fireproof leathers.  
  
But then that was abruptly cut short as all hell broke loose.  
  
Now, Xander runs out into the main hall of the Stable—so the wizards and witches call it, though it's easily the size of a football fied, and made entirely of stone—past the stalls with and without dragons. Some of those dragons have poked their heads out to see what the commotion is, others are sleeping through it. A few have their backs against the wall, ready for a fight. Those few include Norbert, who is standing protectively over Junior. The baby dragon— _kid_ , per Charlie—is crying.  
  
“It's okay, it's okay,” Xander pauses to say, mostly breathless from his flat-out run across the Stable. Norbert snorts.  
  
“Hhhhhardly,” she exhales in a plume of smoke. “Thhhhhat one is trouble. Mark my words.”  
  
But Xander is already running again: from safety, toward the fire and screams. Toward Charlie.  
  
The Sunnydale Survival Instinct is alive and kicking.  
  
Once outside the Stable, he makes for the lake. As he gets closer, the roaring—and it's just that, roaring, no words being spoken: the equivalent of a human shouting at the top of his lungs—stops briefly and a gout of flame shoots from inside the twisted metal cage, which still seems to be holding the dragon.  
  
 _But not for much longer,_ Xander thinks as he gets close enough to feel the heat emanating from the area—if not from the gout of flame, which had, thankfully, gone out over the lake.  
  
Crunching across the charred grass, Xander finally gets to the sandy ground of the shore, close enough that he can see bodies laying on the ground, some attempting to move, others dismayingly still. All of the leather swaddling the bodies is charred and burnt away in some spots, showing raw, red-black flesh, and oh, God, but he can't tell which one is Charlie.  
  
“Charlie!” he calls out desperately, his voice lost to breathlessness and another of those roars. The cage creaks alarmingly as the dragon within begins to batter the side of it with all its considerable strength. This close, Xander is awed by the size of the cage—and wonders at the size of the dragon it contains. Charlie had told him the Ukranian Ironbelly is the largest of all breeds of dragon, and that it could get up to six tons.  
  
“Lean, but long. Broad through the chest, narrow through the withers, tail longer than the body with sharp spikes running along it. I've only ever seen picures of one, mind. Not a single live one has been spotted in my lifetime. There's some as think they've gone extinct. But not me. And today, I get to see one. At last,” Charlie had said, not without a certain glee in his voice. Xander, curled up with Charlie on the floor of his office, their fingers linked, Charlie's breath gentle and warm in his ear, had rolled his drowsy eyes, trying to and failing to imagine this dragon that his lover was so smitten with, sight unseen.  
  
But even if he had managed to imagine  _something_ , that something wouldn't have come close to the reality of what, quite suddenly, comes bursting out of the side of the cage facing him. One moment, the bars of that side are bowed dangerously outward, and the next, they're flying apart, pelting the surrounding area with heated shrapnel. The remains of Military Guy drop Xander to the ground into as small a target as possible, covering his head.  
  
Something hot and sharp enough to whistle through the air comes flying past the top of Xander's arm-covered skull and he flinches.  
  
That awful, pointless roar sounds again, only this time, it's more of a laugh—a ridiculously loud, gargled with boulders chuckle—and far too close for Xander's liking.  
  
“Ssssstupid wizzzzzards! You thhhhhink to cage  _me_?” Another boulder-laugh, and Xander looks up to find the Ironbelly, in all it's metallic glory—it kind of reminds Xander vaguely of Mecha-Godzilla—staring directly at him with those burning red eyes, from a distance that can be counted in mere yard. This close, he can smell it: gall and brimstone, earth and metal. “You will pay for your missssstake withhhhh your livesssss!”  
  
It opens it's mouth wide, and Xander can see a roseate glow lighting the way back down it's long throat.  
  
“Wait!” Xander calls in Parcels-Tongue, as loud as he can, and the Ironbelly blinks—sheer surprise so obvious, anyone would have been able to read it. It's mouth closes, then opens again, that frightening roseate glow disappearing back down its throat. “I'm not a wizard!”  
  
The Ironbelly blinks again, and faster than Xander would have thought, closes the distance between them, so that it's snout is not ten feet from Xander, its truck-tire red eyes examining him closely.  
  
Too scared to do more than stand there and be examined, Xander tries very hard not to void a bladder he'd thought was empty.  
  
“ _Not_  a wizzzzzard?” The Ironbelly breathes, and Xander is instantly soaked in sweat. Then it turns its head slightly and cocks one of those massive red eyes at him. “Thhhhhen whhhhhat  _are_ you?”  
  
“Uh—ah—” Xander arms sweat out of his eyes. “I think I'm what wizards call a 'Muggle.'”  
  
The Ironbelly snorts, and steam fills the air around Xander. “You ssssspeak my tongue . . . you cannot be a Muggle.”  
  
“So I've been told.” Xander shrugs. “Look, you're angry that you got caught and caged by wizards, right? But look at it this way: I'm told it took fifteen wizards to do it. And I'm sure that's more than any dragon that's ever been caught.”  
  
Appearing to consider this, the Ironbelly rears up a little, it's scales glinting orange-red in the sun's westering light.  
  
“Also—the wizards who caught you were trying to save your life.”  
  
That look of consideration leaves the Ironbelly's eyes as it glares at Xander. “Wizzzzzardsssss do not sssssave dragonsssss. Nor do dragonsssss need sssssaving!”  
  
Licking chapped, dry lips, Xander takes a deep breath. “That's not what  _I've_  heard. I've heard that there are wiz—er, people who hunt dragons for their scales and teeth and, uh, other parts. And that these people have been pretty successful at it. So much so that many breeds of dragon are nearing extinction. And most wizards thought that you guys, uh, Ironbellys, that is, had already gone extinct.”  
  
“An Ironbelly? Exxxxxtinct?” The Ironbelly seems genuinely affronted. “Never!”  
  
It— _he_ , for it  _is_  male—seems adamant, but there's a wavering in its tone that suggests it isn't entirely sure.  
  
Running on his instinct—the Xander-y kind, the one that'd saved him from more ass-kickings than anyone might think—Xander steps a little closer to the Ironbelly. “Have  _you_  ever seen another Ironbelly? Besides your parents, that it?”  
  
“Asssss if I would tell a friend of wizzzzzardsssss! I will not sssssee othhhhhersssss of my kind hunted and captured asssss I wasssss!” Practically sputtering, the Ironbelly opens his mouth wide again, and that roseate glow starts to creep up his throat. “I will put an end to thhhhhe ssssscheming of wizzzzzardsssss right now!”  
  
“Wait!”  
  
“No more waiting, little Muggle!”  
  
Xander holds up his hands. “But I can prove  _these_  wizards are good wizards, and that they're only trying to help dragons and protect them! I can prove it!”  
  
That glow halts and the dragon closes his mouth for a moment before asking: “Hhhhhow? Tell me!”  
  
Xander begins backing toward the Stable. “Come with me, and I'll do better than tell you, I'll _show_  you.”  
  
The Ironbelly looks skeptical, shaking his head. “A trap! A trick!”  
  
“It's not, I promise!” Xander scrambles for something to cement the promise. “Listen, I swear on my life that no one here wants to hurt you. I mean, you've scared them all pretty badly, and you may have  _hurt_  a lot of them pretty badly—”  _oh, God, oh, Charlie, please be okay_  “—but there's no ill-will toward you, here.”  
  
The dragon appears to be thinking this over when he suddenly reaches out, lightning-quick, and grabs Xander in his right front claw, somehow managing not to cut him in half, despite razor sharp talons that are the length and maybe twice the width of a Claymore sword.  
  
Barely able to breath in the Ironbelly's grip, Xander nonetheless squeaks when he is brought up to the dragon's eye-level.  
  
“If it  _isssss_  a trap, little Muggle, if I find one wand turned againssssst me, thhhhhen you will be my firssssst meal of thhhhhe day,” the Ironbelly hisses and steams. Xander can only nod weakly.  
  
Then the Ironbelly is walking toward the Stable, trampling small trees and large bushes. From his vantagepoint of way-the-fuck-up-high, Xander can see figures diving out from under some of those bushes just before they get stomped flat. A couple of the figures are wearing green robes, but the others are wearing leathers like Charlie's.  
  
The Ironbelly pays them no mind. He makes his wary way to the Stable, reaching it in a few economical steps. At the entryway he pauses and paces expectantly. “Well?”  
  
“Uh . . . a little help, here?” he calls out in Parcels-Tongue, hoping one of the other dragons in residence will come out and talk the Ironbelly down off his belltower.  
  
Nothing.  
  
Not even a wizard, though in light of what the Ironbelly had said, that's probably a good thing, since they'd doubtless have their wands drawn.  
  
“Well? Whhhhhere isssss thhhhhis proof?” The dragon huffs impatiently, licking his chops and looking at Xander.  
  
“ _Somebody!_ ” Xander calls as loudly as he can, which isn't very, for the grip that he's caught in. But he calls twice, in fact: Once in Parcels-Tongue, once in English.  
  
“I warned you hhhhhe was trouble.” A soft rumbling comes from the direction of the first stall on the left. Norbert's.  
  
Xander sags in relief. “Norbert! Could you please tell him these wizards aren't out to hurt dragons or hunt them for their parts?”  
  
Norbert's head pokes out of her stall, and she sizes up the Ironbelly and snorts. “Thhhhhere's no telling such as hhhhhhim anything. Too stubborn and stupid to see reason.”  
  
The Ironbelly makes an offended noise.  
  
“Norbert!” Xander squeaks as the claw around him tightens. “Not helping!”  
  
“No, I do not suppose I am,” she says simply. “But thhhhhen whhhhhat hhhhhhelp is thhhhhere for you? Thhhhhis one seems bound and determined to thhhhhink and believe whhhhhhatever he wants, regardless of thhhhhhe truthhhhh.”  
  
If Xander wasn't on the verge of passing out from lack of oxyen, he'd swear that the Ironbelly just huffed. “Well! If you are quite done insssssulting me, madam—“  
  
“You know, I do not thhhhhink I  _am_  done,” Norbert replies disdainfully, leaning a little more out of the stall. She gives the Ironbelly another measuring look then sniffs. “Frankly, I do not see whhhhhy even thhhhhese kindness-addled wizards would bothhhhher with preserving  _your kind_.”  
  
“I—I beg your pardon!” The Ironbelly actually sits back, as if insulted. His grip on Xander tightens until Xander's beginning to see spots and little explosions across his darkened vision. “Thhhhhere isssss no call for sssssuch rudenesssss!”  
  
“Says thhhhhe dragon hhhhholding a hhhhhelpless Muggle as a hhhhhostage to hhhhhis safety.”  
  
To that, it seems, the Ironbelly has no reply.  
  
“You are really being quite unreasonable. And cowardly,” Norbert adds, ducking back into her stall as if she's lost interest in the proceedings.  
  
Meanwhile the Ironbelly holds Xander up and takes a good, long look at him . . . then makes a sound of disgust and drops him.  
  
The fall isn't terribly far—only about thirty feet, or so—but when Xander hits, left side first, a lot of things go  _snap-crackle-crunch_  all at once. The pain of it is so incredible, it barely hurts at all, beyond the surprise of it. The bright-white, world-erasing  _shock_  of it.  
  
The last thing Xander hears—aside from the Ironbelly almost diffidently calling out to Norbert, asking what she'd meant by “kindness-addled,” and Norbert's smoky laughter—is someone calling his name in a broken, ragged tone, over and over, like an ambulance.  
  
 _Yeah . . . one of those sounds good right about now_ , he thinks, quite clearly. Then the white light erases him, too, and for a long while, there's nothing.  
  


*

  
  
“Well, look who's finally back with us!”  
  
Xander blinks his blurry eyes a bunch of times before his vision comes into something like focus. When it does, he sees a smiling, motherly woman with bright red hair—silvering at the temples—leaning over him, teary-eyed and relieved. His subconscious recognizes her from her photos before his conscious—barely—mind does.  
  
“M-Mrs. Weasley?” he croaks out of a throat that's bone dry and ticking like a grandfather clock. Charlie's mum tuts and reaches out to cup Xander's face in her hand. Her palm is cool on his warm face, and she brushes his hair off his face.  
  
“You'll call me 'Mum,” and there's the end of it,” she says kindly, leaning down to kiss his forehead. Then she picks up a cup from the night table and holds it for Xander to sip from. Water. Blessed water. After half a cup, he feels full and sits back. Mrs. Weasley puts the cup down and regards Xander solemnly. “You've had us all rather worried—especially poor Charlie. He's been beside himself, not sleeping or eating.”  
  
“Charlie!” Xander suddenly sits up, ignoring the dizziness that comes when he does, and the restraining hand Mrs. Weasley puts on his chest, which is bare. Much like the rest of him, which he discovers upon shoving himself to his feet on legs that wobble and shake. He quickly grabs the blanket and wraps it around his lower half, prepared to march out of—wherever he is—to find Charlie and make sure he's okay, aside from not sleeping and not eating.  
  
But a quick glance around shows that he's in Charlie's bedroom—the room he'd spent so much time in over the past few days, all of it pleasant. . . .  
  
He takes an uncertain step toward the door and nearly falls over, but for Mrs. Weasley's holding up. She's stronger than she looks, and she already looks pretty sturdy for a woman her age. Or any age, really.  
  
“Why'm I so weak,” Xander asks as she helps him back to the bed, sitting him down then swinging his blanketed-legs up into the bed. “What happened?”  
  
Mrs. Weasley frowns. “Don't you remember, dear?”  
  
“I—“ Xander blinks and frowns, himself. He remembers . . . something went wrong. At the Stable. Something went  _very_  wrong, and the dragon Charlie's tamers had brought in got loose before they could make sure it was calm and compliant—as much as a dragon could be or would be, anyway—and there'd been people injured. Badly. . . .  
  
“Charlie—is he—was he—“ Xander can't even say it, the idea fills him with such icy fear as he's never felt before. Fear that even Mrs. Weasley's warm smile doesn't do a lot to wash away.  
  
“Charlie suffered a concussion—not nearly as bad as yours—and some minor burns. The on-site Healers had him up and walking around within minutes. Minutes I'm told that you bought them, almost at the cost of your life,” she admonishes, sitting on the bed next to him. “Charlie's barely left your side, but to make certain that troublesome dragon's settling in alright.”  
  
Xander licks his lips as more memories come tumbling back into his conscious mind. He remembers that he'd talked to the dragon. An Ironbelly . . . he thinks. And he remembers that it had been carrying him somewhere in its claw, at some point. But that's where everything gets really fuzzy. Norbert had been there, he knows. But what they'd all talked about, he can't remember for the life of him. “There were so many bodies, laying so still. I thought Charlie was one of them. I thought—“ closing his mouth around what he'd thought, Xander wipes impatiently at his eyes.  
  
“It's a dangerous career, our Charlie has . . . but he's very good at it. You must trust to that, and not put yourself in harm's way again.” Mrs. Weasley pats his hand, then leans in to hug him fiercely. “That said . . .  _thank you_ , Xander, for saving my son's life. For saving a  _lot_  of sons's and daughter's lives, that night.”  
  
After a stunned moment, Xander hugs her back. “I don't even really remember what happened, Mrs.—uh, Mum. I think—”  
  
“ _Xander_! You're awake!”  
  
Startled, Xander opens his eyes and looks toward the doorway, then lets go of Mrs. Weasley. “ _Charlie_!”  
  
Before he can try to get up, Charlie's already at the bed, coming to sit on Xander's other side. He looks disheveled, exhausted and rather haggard, his face pale even for Charlie, dark circles around his eyes, his cheeks slightly hollow. His freckles stand out like they were done by an enthusiastic child with a Sharpie.  
  
He looks  _beautiful_.  
  
“Oh, love,” Charlie says, tears welling up in his eyes as he reaches out to caress Xander's cheek so, so tenderly. Then he's scooting closer on the bed and pulling Xander equally tenderly into his arms. Xander goes eagerly, his own arms coming up to wrap around Charlie's neck while Charlie buries his wet face in Xander's.  
  
“—was so worried . . . they had to put you in a healing coma, you had so many bones broken . . . bloody dangerous thing to do with a man who's already got a concussion, but they said you'd be in constant pain if they didn't, so I said  _yes_ —“ Charlie's whispering in a rush, his strong, solid body actually shaking in Xander's arms.  
  
“Hush, it's okay.  _I'm_  okay. You did good,” he whispers back in Charlie's hair, kissing it softly, stroking it with a tremoring hand. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Mrs. Weasley stand up. A few moments later the door to the bedroom clicks quietly shut. “I've got a hard head. It'll take more than a dragon to crack it open.”  
  
Charlie laughs a little. “Though not for lack of trying,” he sniffs, sitting back a little to wipe his face and look Xander in the eyes. He reaches up to cup Xander's face in both hands and kisses him softly: once on each eyelid, once on the forehead, and once on the lips. “Merlin, but I  _love_ you.”  
  
“I love you, too.  _So much_ ,” Xander kisses onto Charlie's lips. Charlie tastes like some kind of whiskey, instead of pumpkin juice. And stomach acid—the twin tastes of worry.  
  
Xander moans and deepens the kiss, swallowing Charlie's surprise and trying to take that worry into himself. Anything to spare Charlie even a moment of pain.  
  
The kiss draws out until it's more panting for oxygen on each other's lips than actual kissing. Charlie groans and bears Xander down to the bed, straddling him, nuzzling his neck and pinning his wrists.  
  
“You smell so bloody  _good_ , love,” he murmurs desperately. Xander smiles and kicks the blanket off. He feels dizzy again, and this time it has nothing to do with his apparent concussion.  
  
Well. Maybe a  _little_  to do with it.  
  
But it's mostly the fact that all his available blood seems to be rushing to points south of his belly button and north of his knees.  
  
Charlie's releasing one of Xander's wrists so he can undo his fly, swearing as he fails to get it unbuttoned. Xander laughs and brushes his hand away and takes care of it, himself. Single-handedly.  
  
He's had enough practice over the past few days.  
  
“Thanks,” Charlie says as Xander pulls him out and strokes him lightly. It occurs to Xander in passing that, as men recovering from a dragon attack, perhaps they shouldn't be getting groinal so soon after. Especially with Charlie's Mum somewhere on the premises, probably not far away.  
  
Then the thought's gone, like it never was, and Xander's renewed his stroking.  
  
“Any time, handsome.”  
  
Charlie hisses as Xander's thumb brushes across the tip of his cock, sliding in the wetness already gathered there. When Xander brings his thumb to his mouth to suck that wetness off—quintessential Charlie . . . Xander already knows Charlie's taste and could pick it out of a line-up . . . though . . . ew, pre-come tasting line-up—Charlie groans again at the sight and takes himself in hand.  
  
Xander grins and looks down at his own hard cock, bobbing in the air like his own, personal wand.  
  
“Now'd be a great time for that lube spell, hon.”  
  
Charlie returns the grin. “Right.” He touches the wand holstered on the leg of his jeans and murmurs the spell under his breath. Xander feels that mild, somehow oily tingle where the sun don't shine, and brings his legs up to his chest, as high and wide as he can.  
  
Staring, Charlie makes a strangled sound low in his throat, then pushes Xander's legs further up, positioning himself so that Xander's calves on his flannel-covered shoulders. Then he stares some more, stroking himself harder and harder.  
  
“Gotta prepare you,” he finally breathes, leaning in to kiss Xander rather sweetly. “You've been hurt enough as it is.”  
  
Xander puts his hand on Charlie's nape and scritches through the hair there. “Okay, but don't take  _too_  long. We don't know how much time we've got before your Mum comes back.”  
  
“Point.” Charlie's finger brushes Xander's opening, feinting inward several times before actually breaching the first ring of muscle. Xander's breath catches, and he smiles, bearing down on Charlie's finger as hard as he can. Charlie swears and crooks his finger, twisting and turning it till Xander's breathing faster and begging for another.  
  
Two fingers burns and hurts, of course, but in a way Xander loves—can't imagine doing without. Charlie's blunt fingers scissor in and stretch him carefully, but not especially slowly. But it doesn't matter. Sooner, rather than later, Xander's pleading for a third finger.  
  
“Or you  _could_  just fuck me,” he pants, eyes sparkling, face flushed. “I promise, I'm ready.”  
  
“Xand—“  
  
“Please, Charlie,” Xander makes the puppy-eyes, but subtly. “We both really need this.  _Please_.”  
  
Charlie lets out a breath and coats his cock with the lube that's already on his hand. “Well, 'please'  _is_  the magic word,” he says, lining himself up and pushing forward ever-so-slowly into Xander, who arches his back up off the bed at the hugefullabsolutelyperfect sensation of having Charlie slide inside of him.  
  
When Charlie's in as far as he's going to go—in this position, anyway—he kisses Xander lingeringly.  
  
“When I saw you laying there, on the ground, so broken and still, I thought I'd lost you, love,” he says quietly. Xander feels on the bed for Charlie's hands and links their fingers together.  
  
“Never,” he replies, holding Charlie's gaze. “Never.”  
  
They kiss again, for long moments, Charlie moving slowly within Xander, each thrust as slow and careful as he can make it, each withdrawal the same. Till Xander's got tears in his eyes and he's begging Charlie to  _please, please_.  
  
Finally, Charlie does, moving faster and harder, till Xander's biting his lip so he doesn't cry out, but making muffled little whimpers that seem to spur Charlie on. And on. And on, until rhythm is a distant dream and they're both beyond crying out and reduced to soundless grunts and gasps.  
  
“I love you,” Charlie exhales, and Xander goes still as he, cock untouched by either of their hands, comes all over their chests. His muscles clench tight around Charlie who comes shortly after, moaning Xander's name like a plea.  
  


*

  
  
Afterward, Charlie reluctantly pulls out of Xander, still half-hard, and cleans them both up with a word.  
  
After he rights his own clothes, he summons Xander's clothes—clean and mended—from wherever they'd been, and helps Xander get dressed. Though not without an inordinant amount of stroking and caressing. He's got Xander in a clinch, his front pressed to Xander's back, with the excuse of helping to zip up Xander's jeans. But he's doing more grinding against and fondling of Xander, than zipping. And Xander, for his part, is giggling like a school girl.  
  
There's a sudden knock on the door, and immediately thereafter a middle-aged woman in green robes strides in without waiting for a response. She takes in Charlie and Xander, mid-clinch, mid-fondle, mid-grind, and mid-giggle.  
  
“Well. I can see you're feeling better,” she says dryly, with a faint Romanian accent. Xander and Charlie separate quickly, and she rolls her eyes. “At any rate, you'll still be suffering from the after-effects of that concussion. Still feeling dizzy, a little weak and shaky—though you're lucky the bone-mend worked so well on you. We only had to keep you under for four days.”  
  
Xander's eyes widened till it felt as if they'd fall out of his skull. “ _Four days_?” He looked at Charlie, who nodded grimly.  
  
“Yes. And better a healing coma than being awake for all the burning and itching and pain while your bones knitted themselves back together,” the Healer said brusquely. Then she smiled. “Nice job with that dragon, by the way.”  
  
“Uh . . . thank you?” Xander said, still trying to wrap his head around the whole  _four days_ -thing. The Healer waved her hand dismissively and came into the room proper, at the same time shooing Charlie out and shutting the door behind him.  
  
“You saved my husband's life—it is I who should be thanking you. Have a seat, please.”  
  
So Xander does, on the edge of the bed. Once seated, he's given the oddest examination of his life. One that he apparently passes, because the stoic-faced healer even cracks a smile at the end, putting away her wand, and handing him two vials filled with swirling violet-blue potion.  
  
“To be drunk at noon, and again at midnight. I'll be by tomorrow morning around nine, to see how you're doing,” she says, then turns toward the door, sweeping grandly toward it. When she opens it, Charlie, and about a dozen other redheads and not-so-redheads tumble into the room--nearly onto the Healer, who nimbly steps aside.  
  
Before anyone of the Weasleys can stammer any explanations, she huffs and swans past and through them with a brisk: “Good day!”  
  
The gaggle of Weasleys, Charlie included, all clear their throats. A couple even start to whistle as they sidle off back down the hall and towards the stairs. Xander sighs, then smiles.  
  
Well, he'd have met them soon enough, anyway, he supposes.  
  
“Hi, guys. I'm Xander Harris. I'm guessing you must be Charlie's famil—“ Xander doesn't even get to finish the sentence, because the redheads and not-so-redheads are suddenly crowding Charlie's bedroom—Charlie, included, but looking rather put out at the fact that he's at the edge of the crowd nearest the door, not Xander—hands held out for shaking or for hugging, all talking a million miles per minute.  
  
Xander can pick out a few names, here and there as his hand is taken and shaken—Lily, Teddy, Jamie, Victoire, Ron, even  _Percy_ —before a brunette makes her way to the front of the crowd. She's wearing very sensible robes, but her hair is bushy and all over the place. She's got a friendly, girl-next-door face and an apologetic smile that reveals prominent, perfect teeth.  
  
“Hermione Weasley—sorry for converging on you like this, but everyone's been dying to get a glimpse of you, and the Healer wouldn't let anyone in but Charlie and Mum Weas—oh! Oh,  _my_ , you're—“ she stops speaking, going milk pale under her peachy complexion when she gets a good look at him. Xander smiles wryly. He's used to any of a hundred different reactions to his eyes, and this isn't even one of the bad ones. People sometimes behave very strangely when they meet a guy with eyes that are different colors.  
  
At least that's been Xander's experience.  
  
“I know, the eyes—they're kinda weird,” he begins reassuringly, not wanting to get off on the wrong foot with any member of Charlie's family. But Hermione shakes her head quickly, bushy hair flying like a cape.  
  
“No, no, it's not the heterochromia, it's just that—well, you bear a rather strong resemblence to someone I . . . once knew. . . .” she trails off, leaning closer to him and looking not into his eyes, per se, but into  _him_. It's an eerie feeling to be  _stared into_. Especially when he doesn't know what she's trying to see. So he simply gazes back at her, into her intent brown eyes.  
  
Behind her, Charlie's family has gone utterly quiet, clearly waiting for Hermione to finish her examination of Xander. Charlie, meanwhile, has pushed his way to the front of the crowd, and is standing next to Hermione, looking perplexed.  
  
“What's going on?” he asks, when Hermione whips out a wand faster than Xander would have expected and points it at him. At his face, to be exact.  
  
“Uh—“ he begins, but Hermione interrupts him with a word: “ _Revelare_!”  
  
Xander flinches back, expecting . . . he doesn't even know what, but nothing happens. Not so much as a tingle.  
  
“ _Hermione_!” Charlie exclaims, pushing her wand arm out of the way and coming to stand in front of Xander, effectively blocking him from anymore spells. “What in the bloody hell do you think you're doing?”  
  
Hermione is leaning around Charlie to get a look at Xander, seeming chagrined the longer nothing happens  _to_  Xander.  
  
“Nothing changed. I don't understand,” she says unhappily. Xander, standing up and putting his hands on Charlie's tense arms, snorts.  
  
“That makes two of us, Mrs. Weasley. Uh, could you stop pointing your wand at my boyfriend and me?”  
  
Still seeming chagrined, she reluctantly tucks the wand into her robes. “I—I apologize, it's just that you  _look_ —“ she starts to say, but at that same moment, someone at the back of the crowd of waiting Weasleys says: “Harry! You're here! Just in time, too, mate!”  
  
Xander hears a low chuckle. “I take it we're allowed in at last? And all at once, I see,” an equally low voice asks.  
  
“Yeah,” the first voice replies—it's coming from a tall redhead with more freckles than complexion.  _Ron_ , Xander thinks his name is. “But 'Mione's temporarily lost her senses—pulled her wand on the poor bloke and cast  _Revelare_  on him!”  
  
“I did  _not_  lose my senses, temporarily or otherwise, Ronald Weasley!” Hermione huffs, then steals another peek at Xander, looking quite aghast before Charlie blocks her view. “But Harry, you really must come  _see_  . . .  _this_.”  
  
“Oh, now, I'm a  _this_? This is just—and I'm not exaggerating when I say— _the warmest_  welcome I've ever received.” Xander snarks to no one in particular, rolling eyes. Just then the crowd parts and a short-ish, wiry man with dark, silvering hair and incredibly vivid green eyes—much darker than Xander's left one—behind wire rim glasses comes to stand directly before Xander.  
  
“You must be Harry Potter,” Xander says, trying to smile and holding his hand out for shaking. When Harry doesn't respond—except for the surprise, the utter  _shock_  in his stone-green eyes turning to incomparable fury—Xander sighs and looks back at Charlie. “Babe, what the hell is going—“  
  
“ _Stupefy_!” Harry Potter grits out, and before Xander can agree that yes, he is  _quite_  stupefied by the events of the past few minutes, he's hit with an invisible force that knocks the wind out of him and the light out of the world.  
  
Said world is erased, yet again, and this time the last thing Xander hears before consciousness abandons him completely is someone—it sounds like Harry Potter—shouting something about a riddle coming back.  
  
 _What an odd moment to remember a freaking_ riddle, Xander thinks bemusedly as his body hits the bed behind him. Then everything is gone, gone, gone. . . .  
  


*

  
  
Horrified, Charlie looks from his lover, to his brother-in-law.  
  
"Harry—what have you  _done_?!"  
  
Harry, standing stock still, eyes as green as the Killing Curse and focused on poor, unconscious Xander, doesn't even spare Charlie a glance.  
  
"It's—he's—Merlin, Charlie, can't you see it?" Harry asks, taking out his wand and leveling at Xander. "It's  _him_!"  
  
"Him- _who_?" Charlie demands, stepping in front of Xander without a qualm, taking out his own wand and leveling it at Harry, who finally glances at him.  
  
"Move out of the way, Charlie."  
  
"No! Not until you tell me why you attacked my boyfriend out of the blue!"  
  
"Charlie—"  
  
" _Harry_." This from Hermione, who's taken her own wand back out. "It's not him. I performed _Revelare_ , and nothing happened. Not so much as a flicker."  
  
Harry nods. "Which only goes to prove he's exactly who he looks like! Bloody hell!"  
  
Charlie's glance goes from one of them, to the other. "Who do you think Xander looks like, Harry?" he asks with poisoned patience, his wand hand shaking with restraint.  
  
Harry laughs mirthlessly. "Not 'looks like.'  _Is._  Can't you  _see_  it, Charlie? Are you blind?"  
  
"No, but I  _am_  losing my patience, Harry Potter! Tell me why you attacked Xander!" Charlie raises his wand slightly, ready to duel, if it comes to that. He knows that, in a contest of magics against Harry Potter, he'll very likely lose, and badly, but what other choice will he have had?  
  
"Charlie," Hermione says very quietly, glancing at Xander. Then she looks at the other Weasleys crowding the room. "Could you all give Harry, Charlie, Ron, and I some privacy, for a moment?"  
  
"But Mum—"  
  
"Aww, Aunt 'Mione—"  
  
"Out. Now." Harry's voice is quiet, but commanding, and upon hearing it, everyone slinks out of the room. Lily even closes the door behind her.  
  
Hermione lets out a breath and casts  _Sonus Probationem_.  
  
"Now, what's all this about, 'Mione—Harry? Scared the life out us all, you have. Not to mention poor Charlie's ready to duel!" Ron says plaintively. "What's the problem with this poor fellow? He doesn't look like anyone special to  _me_."  
  
Harry laughs again. "Not you, too, Ron—"  
  
"But Ron's never  _seen him_ , Harry. Few have—even  _I've_  only seen pictures of him because I have access to Ministry databases. Otherwise, his image has been purged from . . . pretty much everywhere." Hermione shrugs, and looks at Xander again. "Charlie . . . your boyfriend—Xander—somewhat resembles . . . well, he more than  _somewhat_  resembles—"  
  
"Oh, for Merlin's sake, Hermione!" Harry bursts out angrily, then visibly tries to calm himself. "Charlie, your  _Xander_  happens to be a Parseltongue-speaking, spitting image of a young Tom Marvolo Riddle!"


	6. In Veritaserum Veritas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After being Stupefied, Xander wakes up to an interrogation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm not her.

Xander struggles, quite literally, to wakefulness.  
  
It's like swimming up from the bottom of the ocean, all darkness, but with the sense that if one simply keeps moving up, one will finally encounter light. So Xander moves up—swims up from the depths of his dreams and nightmares, fighting against the very powerful urge to simply stay under, where everything's kind of awful, but at least he's familiar with the flavor.  
  
But then he remembers the warm brown eyes and strong arms waiting for him in the light, and the urge to remain is obliterated by the bone-deep  _need_  to be wherever those eyes and those arms are.  
  
So, despite never being the strongest swimmer, Xander pushes his way upward, one word on his lips the whole way.  
  


*

  
  
“Charlie. . . .” he breathes when he surfaces. Once more, he wakes to blurry vision and a dry throat . . . with the addition of a splitting headache.  
  
“I'm here, love,” Charlie's voice calls, farther away than it seems it should be, and frustrated, to boot. Concerned. “I'm—if you don't point that wand somewhere else, Harry Potter, I'll see you eat it one splinter at a time!”  
  
At this, Xander blinks away the blurriness, and squints at the tableau before him.  
  
He's in Charlie's bedroom, still, and in bed, fully dressed, on top of the duvet. To his right, sitting on the bed is a woman he remembers from before he was unconscious: Hermione Weasley. She's gazing at him worriedly, but her wand is nowhere in sight. The same can't be said for the person standing to Xander's left, wand pointed directly at him.  
  
Harry Potter.  
  
“Uh—“ Xander swallows, glancing briefly at the other two people in the bedroom: a tall, long-faced, freckled man he remembers as Ron, and being restrained by Ron, Charlie.  
  
 _Charlie. . . ._  
  
Xander automatically smiles, and Charlie tries to smile back, though its as clear as day he's angry. And not at Xander. His gaze keeps darting to Harry Potter, and his face keeps getting redder and redder.  
  
Xander tries to sits up . . . and can't. In fact, he can't seem to move at all. His limbs feels as if they weigh a ton and, at the same time as if they have disappeared completely.  
  
“Oh, God, am I paralyzed?” he asks, terrified, suddenly remembering that Harry Potter had hit him with some sort of spell that'd knocked him down before driving him unconscious. He looks into fierce green eyes and wishes he could shudder. “Did you paralyze me?”  
  
“In a manner of speaking.” Potter's low voice is unapologetic, almost casual. “It's a spell that petrifies the subject so he can't move. But it's been tweaked a bit to allow you to talk, since . . . we need to have a chat.”  
  
Xander swallows again reflexively, and is filled with relief. “Why—why would you do that to me? What's going on?” he tries to ask calmly, but his voice quavers, anyway.  
  
“We need information, Mr. Harris,” Hermione says, her gaze flicking momentarily to Potter. Then she looks Xander square in the eye. “About you.”  
  
Xander blinks blankly, then snorts. “Me? I'm nobody. I'm nothing. I haven't even saved the world in ten years.”  
  
It's as he replays the last half of that statement that Xander realizes something's up.  
  
Hermione and Harry glance at eh other, then back at Xander. “Saved the world?” Potter says disbelievingly.  
  
Xander laughs, and opens his mouth to walk back that bit, and instead says: “Yeah. My friend, Willow, she was a witch like you—well, not like  _you_ ,” he admits to Hermione, who looks as if she's not sure whether to be insulted or not. “Willow was an uber-witch—she didn't need a wand to do magic. Though she did sometimes need really gross ingredients . . . anyway she lost someone she loved and it made her go kinda . . . dark, for a little while. She nearly destroyed the world . . . but I talked her down. The Yellow Crayon Speech,” Xander elucidates. But instead of feeling that small glow of pride he used to feel, and hasn't felt in a while, all he feels is horror.  
  
It's like his mouth is running away with his brain.  
  
 _This isn't right_ , he means to say, but what comes out is: “This is all true, by the way.”  
  
Potter snorts and Hermione smiles almost sadly. “We know it is. But we have other questions we need to ask you about . . . who you are and where you came from.”  
  
“You wouldn't believe me if I told you.” Another thing Xander didn't mean to say, but has said, anyway. He sighs, and wishes he could shake his head. “Well, maybe  _you would_  believe me. But you probably wouldn't  _like_  what I have to say,” he adds.  
  
Hermione and Potter share another look.  
  
“Tell us who you are—who you  _really_  are,” Potter commands.  
  
“Alexander Lavelle Harris.”  
  
Frowning, Potter fires off another question. “Where are you from?”  
  
“Originally? Sunnydale, California. USA. Earth.”  
  
“The town that was swallowed by that unstable Hellmouth?” Hermione asks, momentarily brightening, her eyes alight with curiosity. Harry Potter merely looks blank.  
  
“What's a Hellmouth?”  
  
“Honestly, Harry, don't you  _read_?” Hermione scoffs before Xander can answer. Then she's focused on Xander, again. “I'd heard that the Sunnydale Hellmouth was closed by someone called The Slayer, is that right? One girl in all the world who—“  
  
“Does this Hellmouth business have anything to do with Riddle?” Potter demands irritably, waving his wand a bit. Xander wishes he could move out of its range. If there is such a place.  
  
“Dude, you're  _really_  unstable,” he says, licking his lips. Potter's mouth drops open in shock.  
  
“Er, does the name  _Tom Riddle_  mean anything to you?” Hermione asks before Potter can respond. Xander glances at Charlie, who smiles again, though he looks a bit seasick. And Ron suddenly doesn't have to work as hard to restrain him.  
  
Potter and Hermione have both leaned in to hear his answer.  
  
Xander thinks it over carefully, sensing that this is  _the_  question. The one that may determine his future in the wizarding world.  
  
“No,” he says finally. Then, off the sagging of everyone's shoulders and the relief writ large on four faces, he asks: “Should it?”  
  
“What about the name  _Voldemort_?”  
  
Looking Harry in his fierce eyes, Xander enunciates: “No.” Then: “Wait a minute—isn't that the name of an Edgar Allen Poe story?”  
  
Hermione clears her throat over what might be a laugh. “Actually, that's  _Valdemar_.”  
  
“Oh,” Xander says, feeling his face coloring. “Then no, doesn't ring any bells.”  
  
“So why, then, do you look not a bit, but  _exactly_  like Tom Riddle?” Potter runs a hand through his already messy hair.  
  
“I don't know.” Xander thinks it over, though. “They say everyone's got a doppelganger out there. Maybe this Riddle-guy is mine.”  
  
Potter smiles ruefully. “Possible. Just like Polyjuice is possible. But it's unlikely. Besides, you speak Parseltongue. So did Riddle. The doppelganger theory said nothing about that sharing intangible traits like that.” He lowers his wand and sits on the bed, burying his face in his hands for a few moments. “What a bloody mess, this is!”  
  
Xander snorts. “Think of how  _I_  feel! What's this Riddle-guy done, anyway, that's got you guys up in arms?”  
  
Hermione sighs. “That's a very long story, Xander. A bloody and awful one, too . . . Tom Riddle was something of a prodigy among wizards. A prodigy who went very bad. He began calling himself Lord Voldmort, and eventually tried to take over the world. He had a nasty habit of killing Muggles and Muggle-born wizards, like myself, in his quest for domination. Harry, here, was prophecied to destroy him.” Hermione nods at a still muttering Harry Potter. “Voldemort, upon finding out about this prophecy, killed Harry's parents and, over the course of Harry's childhood, killed many people he was close to. The nightmare finally ended in Harry's eighteenth year, when he vanquished Voldemort for good.”  
  
“Or so I thought,” Potter says lowly, looking over at Xander and shaking his head. “How can one man not only look exactly like him, but speak Parseltongue like he did, and not, somehow, be connected to him?”  
  
“I don't know,” Xander says again, quietly, then: “I'm sorry about what he put you through, though. I guess I can understand why you went all ape-shit on me. But please believe, I have nothing to do with this Riddle-Voldemort guy. Technically, I don't even exist, anymore. I couldn't possibly have any ties to this guy.”  
  
And in the silence that follows that, Xander has time to realize what he's said, how it sounds, and that thanks to his motor-mouth, he might have a lot more 'splainin' to do.  
  
He'd really hoped to avoid that.  
  
“What, exactly,” Harry Potter begins, looking at Hermione accusingly. “Was in that Veritaserum?”  
  
Before Hermione can do more than look chagrined, Charlie breaks free of Ron and takes out his wand, pointing it at Xander.  
  
“ _Finite Incantatem_ ," he says quickly, and with a momentary, but intense sensation of pins and needles, feeling rushes back into Xander's body and his stiffened, numb muscles relax.  
  
Relieved, he immediately sits up, opening his arms as Charlie rushes to the bed.  
  
“ _Love_ ,” Charlie breathes, sitting and throwing himself into Xander's arms, burying his face against Xander's neck. Xander holds onto him tight, his eyes squeezed tight shut. He laughs briefly, though there's very little mirth in it.  
  
“This is some family you've got, Weasley,” he whispers, glancing at a rather exasperated-looking Potter over Charlie's shoulder.  
  


*

  
  
Xander takes his prescribed potion—an hour late, it turns out—under the watchful gaze of Harry Potter, who is, as  _that_  turns out, some kind of wizard-cop.  
  
The potion tastes like grape soda and has the same kind of fizz. The first pleasant surprise of this day, and Xander's sorry when it's gone.  
  
“Oh!” he gasps when the headache and slight dizziness he'd had suddenly stop as the last fizzy mouthful runs down his throat. Charlie grins.  
  
“Works fast, doesn't it?”  
  
“I'll say. Wow!” He puts the stopper back in the bottle and places the bottle next to its brother on the night table. Where it promptly disappears, leaving Xander goggling in its wake.  
  
“Where's it go?” he asks. Charlie leans in to steal a quick kiss.  
  
“Back to the infirmary, of course.”  
  
“Of course.” Xander rolls his eyes, but lets Charlie help him to his feet and pull him into his arms. “So. Aside from being a homicidal dark wizard, this Riddle-guy . . . handsome as all get-out?”  
  
Charlie searches Xander's eyes then smiles. “Not as handsome as you.”  
  
“Smooth-talker.”  
  
“It's easy to talk smooth when I have so much to work with.”  
  
Xander grins, some of the tension and upset of the past hour flowing out of him. He puts his arms around Charlie's neck and kisses him—softly at first, then harder as Charlie responds with gratifying desperation.  
  
This goes on until someone clears their throat.  
  
Xander and Charlie separate reluctantly, looking around at Hermione, who's standing next to a horrified-looking Ron. Harry Potter merely looks confused. Hardly a facial expression fit for a collector's card.  
  
Suddenly, Xander remembers someone he'd clean forgot about in the commotion of the morning.  
  
“Gavin! Is Gavin—okay?” he asks Charlie, whose smile fades. Xander's heart drops out of his throat and into his stomach. “Shit, he's not, is he?”  
  
“He's been Apparated to St. Mungo's hospital, back in London. He . . . got the worst of the dragon-fire, and healing him's been touch and go.” Charlie shakes his head, and reaches up to caress Xander's cheek very gently. “But he's a tough one. He'll pull through.”  
  
“Who's Gavin?” Ron asks hesitantly. Hermione swats his arm.  
  
“One of Charlie's coworkers. Don't you pay attention, Ron?”  
  
“He's more than that, he's a good guy who admired the hell out of you people—don't ask me why.” Xander blinks back wetness that's probably tears. “He heard you guys were coming to see about me and this whole Parcels-Tongue thing and he wanted to get your autographs on some collector's cards he has.”  
  
Hermione's hand goes to her mouth and even Potter has the grace to look uncomfortable.  
  
“We must pay him a visit at St Mungo's when we get back home,” Hermione says quietly. Ron nods, and Potter even allows himself a nod.  
  
“Can we—I mean, can you teleport us—I mean  _Apparate_  us all the way to England to see him?” Xander asks Charlie, who holds him close.  
  
“We actually have a system of magical transportation called a Floo. It can take us directly to St. Mungo's and back.” Charlie brushes his fingers across Xander's mouth. “Maybe Gav'll even be awake by the time we get there.”  
  
Relieved, Xander ties to smile. “Maybe.”  
  
“Speaking of London . . . I think while you're there, you ought to stop in at the Ministry before St. Mungo's. And steer clear of Diagon Alley.” Hermione sighs. “Most people don't know what Tom Riddle looked like, but there are a few who would. Mostly older wizards or aurors, like Harry—”  
  
“You mean if I go to London, I'll have the wizard-cops on my ass?” Xander is incredulous. And furious. “Look, why don't you people get that I'm  _not_  this dead evil wizard you seem to think I look like! Sometimes, people just  _look_  sorta like other people for no good reason!”  
  
“ _Sorta like_?” Potter snorts. “Mate, you look  _exactly_  like him, and you speak Parseltongue, something only four people in recent memory have been able to do: me, my daughter,  _you_ , and Voldemort. And you're not related in any way to Lily or me. That leaves only one other person.”  
  
“So, what, it can only be passed down by blood?” Xander frowns, then shakes his head, glaring at Potter. “Charlie said that it could be passed down by a mystical connection, too. Is that how it popped up in  _your_  family?”  
  
Rolling his shoulders, Potter tries, once again, to calm himself. “It just so happens that Voldemort passed his . . . talent for Parseltongue on to me when he tried to kill me using his magic. We were connected mystically through this—“ Harry reaches up to his head and pushes back his messy bangs to reveal a lightning bolt shaped scar that's only slightly lighter than the rest of his skin, but must have, at one time, been very noticeable. “—he gave me this the night he killed my parents, and tried to kill me. For the first time, anyway.”  
  
 _Okay, he's got a chip on his shoulder for a reason. Let's cut the guy some slack,_  Xander thinks, then sighs.  _Still, he's kind of an asshole._  
  
Out loud, he says: “Well, I haven't got any mystical connections to anything or anyone—okay, except for that time I was a hyena for a few days. And the time I was Dracula's bug-eating man-bitch for a couple nights.” Blushing, Xander clears his throat. “But I don't think those count, since technically, I prefer to never think about them.”  
  
“You have an animagus form? You've met Dracula and  _lived_?” That avid light is in Hermione's brown eyes again. “But you're a  _Muggle_!”  
  
“So everyone keeps telling me!” Xander huffs. “And I have no idea what an animagus is, but yeah, I've met Dracula. And lived to tell the tale. Not that I do, since—well, being made into a bug-eating man-bitch is kinda embarrassing.”  
  
Ron coughs over what sounds like a laugh.  
  
“'Mione, is the Veritaserum still working?” Potter asks, looking confused, once more. Hermione nods.  
  
“Still going strong, for the next twenty minutes.”  
  
“What's Verita—whatsits?” Xander asks, and Charlie turns his face till their gazes meet.  
  
“Truth serum.” Off Xander's widened eyes, he goes on. “They dosed you with it before they woke you up, so they could have the truth out of you. I told them it was unnecessary, but, well, I don't suppose my word means very much under these circumstances,” he says ruefully.  
  
“That's not true, Charlie, we just—had to be sure,” Hermione says apologetically. “And we do have more questions that need answering, such as the question of his animagus form, and how a Muggle even has one. And if he has one . . . is he even technically still a Muggle?”  
  
“Oh, God, is this something that's worse than the whole Parcels-Tongue thing?” Xander asks worriedly. Hermione smiles reassuringly.  
  
“Not at all, Xander. Being an animagus is prized among wizard-kind. It means that one, usually a witch or wizard can, with practice, change into an animal form. Usually it's a dog, a cat, or an owl. Sometimes even a toad. The more rare shapes being snakes, deer, and a few other animals that have been recorded throughout history, but not seen in recent years. At least not in the United Kingdom. Though there is a fascinating case of a small tribe of wizarding folk in Western Africa, who are all animagi, and they all have the same animagi form: the hyena. And in Nairobi—“ Hermione's apparently setling in for a good, long, lecture, but Potter interrupts her with a fond almost-smile on his face.  
  
“There. Now you know what an animagus is." His gaze flicks to Xander and turns grim again. "Does any of that sound like you or anything you can do?”  
  
Xander shakes his head. “Not even a little. I was just possessed by a hyena's spirit. I had its thoughts and, uh, appetites. But I wasn't actually a hyena. I'm about as magical as chunk of cement.”  
  
“Except that you speak Parseltongue,” Ron pipes up, then subsides when Charlie glares at him.  
  
“Maybe—“ Hermione frowns to herself, one finger tapping her chin. “Maybe . . . would a Squib be able to speak Parseltongue?”  
  
“Dunno,” Ron says, shrugging. Potter, meanwhile, merely looks thoughtful.  
  
“A Squib, that speaks Parseltongue, and looks exactly like Tom Riddle? Have we stepped into an episode of the Twilight Zone?”  
  
“The  _what_?” Ron and Charlie ask, while Hermione, Potter, and Xander share a look.  
  
“My whole life has been like an episode of the Twilight Zone,” Xander sighs, laughing a little. “So, what's this Squib-thing, anyway? And why do you think I'm one?”  
  
“A Squib is someone born to a magical family, who has very little or no magical power of their own. They can still sense magic, even see magical creatures that Muggles can't see, such as ghosts, and thestrals. But they can't perform magic.” Hermione  _hmms_. “But then Parseltongue isn't exactly  _performing_  magic. It's simply a sense one is born with, much like hearing or sight. One doesn't have to  _do_  anything to make it happen, it simply . . . is.”  
  
Her speculative gaze rests on Xander, and he fidgets. “Yeah, well, I hate to burst your bubble, but the Harrises?  _So_  not a magical family. I didn't even know magic existed till I was fifteen.”  
  
“Well, there's another theory shot down,” Potter says, crossing his arms. “Maybe this trip to St. Mungo's could serve two purposes: Checking in on Charlie's work-mate and getting  _Xander_ , here, checked over to see just what he is.”  
  
Xander huffs again. “I can tell you what I am. Scooby, Zeppo, out-of-work carpenter. Guy who can talk to dragons. That's it.” He nods. “Hey, how's that Ironbelly fitting in?”  
  
Charlie squeezes Xander tight for a moment, then lets him go, but takes his hand. “He's fine. Harry and I have been working with him, helping him to settle in with the others.”  
  
“Yes, the Ironbelly's been giving my Parseltongue a run for its money.” Potter almost smiles again, and when he turns his gaze on Xander, it's considering, and a little less hostile. “Everybody's talking about what you did, the other day. Risking your life to save those people, talking the dragon out of killing them all . . . you're a brave man, whatever else you are.”  
  
“Hardly.” Xander shrugs. “I did it because one of those people was someone I happen to be in love with and can't bear to live without.” He looks at Charlie and smiles. “And I'd do it again, in a heartbeat.”  
  
Charlie links their fingers and brings their hands up to his mouth, pressing a kiss to their knuckles.  
  
“My love,” he whispers, his warm brown eyes never leaving Xander's.  
  
“Ugh, bloody sickening, you two are,” Ron complains, then yelps when Hermione pinches him savagely. “What, they are! It's like being in Puddifoot's, again! So help me!”  
  
“Alright, what I propose we do,” Potter begins, holding out his hands for attention. “Is we all Floo to the Ministry immediately, let the aurors know what's going on so there're no . . . incidents while Xander's in London. Then we go to St. Mungo's, see Charlie's mate, and get the rest of this all straightened out.”  
  
And despite Harry's high-handedness, Xander finds himself saying: “I'm in, if Charlie is. It'd be nice to know why I look and talk like an evil wizard, I guess. Coincidence just ain't cuttin' it, anymore,” he adds off of everyone's surprised looks. Then he smiles sheepishly at Charlie. “Whaddaya say, sexy? Can you get time off of work for the day from the boss?”  
  
Charlie snorts. “I  _am_  the boss.”  
  
“I'll take that as a  _yes_ ,” Xander laughs, and raises an eyebrow at Harry Potter. “Okay. We do this your way.”  
  
Potter raises his own eyebrow. “Thanks for your cooperation,” he says wryly. Just then, Ron's stomach growls loudly, plaintively.  
  
“What?” Ron says defensively, rubbing his abdomen. “Mum promised us all lunch and it's time and past for it. Maybe we should eat before we go. I doubt the Ministry will stand us more than some stale biscuits while we wait.”  
  
“Ron, I think we've got more important matters to deal with than—“  
  
Just then,  _Xander_ 's stomach growls, too, even louder than Ron's.  
  
“Ah, a bloke after my own heart,” Ron says, taking Hermione's hand and pulling her toward the door. “Come on, 'Mione. Xander's Parseltongue isn't going anywhere in the time it takes for soup and a sandwich.”  
  
“I concur,” Xander chips in, tugging Charlie's hand, and following Ron and Hermione out of the room.  
  
“Well. Just so long as everyone has their priorities in order.” Xander hears Harry Potter say to Charlie's otherwise empty bedroom as the rest of them troop down the narrow staircase. Toward a lunch that promises to be awkward at best and downright painful at worst.  
  
But Charlie's squeezing his hand reassuringly, glancing down at him with eyes filled with concern and yes,  _love_.  
  
 _Bring it on,_  Xander thinks daring lunch, and everything after to throw itself at him.  
  
As long as he has Charlie on his side, he can handle anything.


	7. Lunch and Legilimency

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lunch, then a visit to the Ministry of Magic.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: 'Tweren't me!

As everyone settles in around Charlie's surely magically-enlarged kitchen table, Xander finds himself the subject of many curious glances.  
  
He meets everyone with a smile, though limp, and under the table Charlie squeezes his hand.  
  
“--suppose we should thank Merlin Ginny's not here,” he hears Ron whisper just a tad too loudly to Harry, whose mouth purses.  
  
“Yes, I suppose we should be  _thankful_  for that,” he replies through gritted teeth, glancing up at Xander unreadably. Xander looks away. At a breathtakingly lovely young woman sitting across from him, with Weasley-red hair, but the face of an angel fallen to Earth.  
  
“Victoire, right?” he asks, and the table falls silent. But Victoire smiles and nods. “Charlie talks so much about you—about  _all_  of you,” he continues, looking around the table. “It's just a—a real pleasure to meet you guys at last.”  
  
Harry snorts, then winces, glaring at Hermione who, from the sound, had kicked him in the shin.  
  
Mrs. Weasley, just sitting down at the table with a bowl of some sort of pastry too British or too witchly for Xander to put a name to, smiles maternally at them all, her gaze finally landing on Charlie and Xander. “It's a pleasure to finally meet you, too, Xander,” she says warmly. “We were beginning to think Charlie made you up just to stop us asking when he was going to bring someone home for us to meet.”  
  
“ _Mum_ ,” Charlie says, blushing, but smiling, too. Mrs. Weasley waves a hand dismissively.  
  
“Well, it's true.” She laughs. “And speaking of, from the lovely descriptions of you he gave us, we thought  _you_  were too good to be true, but you're not! You're real and every bit as wonderful as Charlie's made you out to be.”  
  
Harry Potter's eyebrows climb halfway up to his hairline, and even Hermione seems to be studying her stew for signs and portents. Ron, apparently oblivious to the conversation, is face-deep in his sandwich.  
  
Xander smiles limply. “Thank you, Mrs.—Mum.”  
  
“Now, dig in.” Mrs. Weasley orders firmly, her gaze turning a bit stern. “Both you and Charlie haven't been eating like you should for far too long. You need to keep your strength up. Especially you, Xander Harris. You'll heal faster.”  
  
Xander and Charlie share a glance and a smile.  
  
Whatever complications this day has in store for them, there's nothing for it, now, but to dig into lunch. Especially with Xander's stomach growling like that again at the mouth-watering scent of beef stew.  
  
A spoonful proves it tastes every bit as good as it smells.  
  
And, as if someone flicked a switch, suddenly the whole table is talking at, with, and over each other about anything and everything, it seems. Everything but Xander. Even Harry Potter is talking with a prissy-looking Weasley that could only be  _Percy_ , about what sounds like work.  
  
Xander sighs, relieved.  
  
“See? It'll be alright, love,” Charlie whispers in Xander's ear, kissing the lobe lightly. “Now, eat up. Mum's right about you needing to keep your strength up. Because after we get this whole Riddle-business straightened up, I'm going to take you to bed, and I am going to wear. You. _Out_.”  
  
That kiss is followed by a teasing lick that can allude to one thing, and one thing only.  
  
Coloring rather brightly, Xander doesn't dare glance at Charlie. But he spends the rest of lunch grinning idiotically at his stew. When he's not slurping it up by the spoonful.  
  


*

  
  
Xander tumbles tail-over-tea-kettle out of a huge fireplace and into a much huger hall, of sorts.  
  
Filled with people—witches and wizards, Xander presumes—dressed in all sorts of robes and other strange accoutrements, the places is bustling and busy.  
  
“Wow,” Xander exclaims weakly, as Charlie, who'd landed on his feet, helps him up, dusts him off, and moves him a few feet away from the fireplace, just in time for Harry to tumble out—landing on his stomach—then Ron and Hermione to land, albeit shakily, on their feet. “That was . . . something.”  
  
He starts to walk and his wobbly legs almost deposit him face-first on the floor. Charlie catches him and holds him up. “It's this way, love.”  
  
“Oh. Right. I knew that,” Xander says, letting himself be led in the opposite direction to the one he'd started off in.  
  
More than one glance is given him, in his ostentatiously Muggle attire. Not to mention the fact that he's walking with  _the_  Harry Potter, Hermione Weasley, and Ron Weasley. (He can hear the whispers as they shlep down the long hall, toward what looks like a reception or information desk.)  
  
“And no one's gonna zap me with their wands because I look like this Riddle-guy, right?” Xander whispers to Hermione. But it's Harry Potter who answers.  
  
“Most of the people we come across won't even have seen Tom Riddle. Even the aurors. Though my boss, Mad-Eye Moody—“  
  
“ _Mad-Eye_?!!”  
  
“—will certainly have,” Harry finishes with that almost-smile. It turns into a full smile as they approach the reception desk, which is manned by an attractive older wizard with dark blond hair and kind grey eyes. “Hello, Roderick.”  
  
“Hello, Harry. Hermione, Ron . . . and, ah! Guests!” he holds out what looks like two brass lapel pins to Harry, who takes them and hands one to Charlie and one to Xander. The pins are shaped like little owls, and have no backing with which to affix them. Xander looks to Charlie to ask what he's supposed to do with it, when he sees Charlie press it to the collar of his flannel shirt, where it stays without any apparent help.  
  
 _Duh. Magic_ , Xander thinks, and presses his own pin to the collar of his t-shirt. When he cautiously lets go of it, it stays. Magically.  
  
“Huh,” he breathes, and Charlie looks at him questioningly. “Nothing. Just marveling at the magic. Again.”  
  
“Ah.” Charlie leans in to whisper as they walk past the reception desk and up a shallow flight of stairs. “I hope you're not . . . overwhelmed.”  
  
“No, I'm not, it's just . . . kinda bemusing. And it makes me a little homesick,” he admits. Charlie's brows draw together.  
  
“You know . . . since we're in London . . . we could visit your friend, Giles, if you like.”  
  
Xander freezes. “That's, uh . . . actually not a good idea.” He tries on a smile that feels as limp as a dead fish. “I . . . we really need to have a talk about my past.”  
  
Charlie frowns, but squeezes Xander's hand. “Whatever you have to tell me, it'll be okay.”  
  
Still smiling that dead-fish smile, Xander bumps his shoulder against Charlie's. “Let's hope so.”  
  


*

  
  
The offices Xander finds himself in bear close resemblence to all the other offices he's ever been to.  
  
Cubicles, people in suits and ties—mostly under grey and black robes—water coolers with people standing around them chatting.  
  
Of course, there are the things that are distinctly unique to a  _magical_  office: the proliferation of wands, the crystal balls he sees in several cubicles, the owls flying around, and in and out of open windows. And the objects that float by, apparently unattended.  
  
“So, this is, like, the magic police's headquarters?” Xander asks, as he ducks a tray holding scones and a pot of jam. It sails on past him, not even pausing when Ron relieves it of one of its scones.  
  
“That, it is.” Harry stops at a corner office with a closed door and knocks on it while turning the doorknob. “Chief? It's Harry—there's someone I need for you to—oh, hello, Kingsley.”  
  
“Hello, Harry,” a calm, friendly voice says, and Xander's hopes for this meeting rise—then crash as another voice barks: “Potter! What is it, now?”  
  
Harry swings the door open wide enough for Xander to get a look at the back of some truly wild robes and a matching hat, and the smiling face of a middle-aged black guy. And, sitting across from said black guy is an older fellow with wild grey hair, a fierce expression and one . . .  _mad_ eye. Mad enough that it puts Xander's piddling heterochromia in perspective.  
  
Said eye ticks to Xander and its pupil sort of . . . zooms in on him like a camera lens. The other eye widens until it seems in danger of falling out of its socket.  
  
“Merlin's saggy left bollock,” Mad-Eye breathes. “ _He's back_.”  
  
“Well, bloody hell,” the other guy—Kingsley, Xander presumes—says, looking very troubled indeed. Then both men are digging in their robes, and Xander knows what's coming, so he starts to duck. But not faster than Charlie can jump in front of him.  
  
“Charlie, no!”  
  
“He's not who you think he is!”  
  
“Weasley!” Mad-Eye barks, and even Ron and Hermione jump. But Charlie stands firm. “Get out of the way!”  
  
“No, Chief, he's not—You-Know-Who!” Harry jumps in front of Charlie. “His name's Xander Harris and he's a Muggle—we think—who turned up in Romania, talking to dragons.”  
  
“Which talent he used, I might add, to save the lives of amore than a dozen people,” Charlie says, only to get elbowed by Harry. Xander puts his hands on Charlie's bicepsis and ties to pull him out of the way. But it's like pulling on tree trunks. So Xander slids his hands up to Charlie's tense shoulders and kneads the muscles there.  
  
“It's okay, Charlie. No one here is gonna hurt me,” he murmurs as calmingly as he can. Mad-Eye, meanwhile has stood up to his full height, and is staring right at Xander, who quails under that weird gaze, but keeps up the kneading.  
  
“Uh . . . hi,” he says, smiling a grimace of a smile. Then, in a sudden feat of sheer, balls-to-the-wall bravery, decides to brazen it out. “I hear tell I look like someone who used to terrify the wizarding world. I don't know why that is, but it's something I can't help. So  _please_  don't zap me with another spell. I'm willing to cooperate with you in any way you need without being paralyzed, or knocked unconscious, or dosed with truth serum.”  
  
Mad-Eye blinks—well, the mad eye just whirls before settling on Xander again . . . before he lowers his wand.  
  
Next to Xander, Ron's and Hermione's mouths drop open audibly.  
  
“Well, then,” Mad-Eye says gruffly. “Come in, sit down, all of you. Explain yourselves. And leave _nothing_  out.”  
  
“ _Please_  really  _is_  the magic word, isn't it?” Charlie whispers over his shoulder to Xander, only for Mad-Eye to shoot him a piercing look that makes even a dragon-tamer take a step back.  
  
Harry enters the office first—which looks barely large enough to  _fit_  them all, let alone  _seat_  them all—beckoning the others in with a glance and a nod. Charlie and Xander take each other's hands and walk in together, cautiously, followed by Ron and Hermione. Xander tries not to feel like a prisoner with guards in front and behind, and doesn't quite manage it.  
  
“Have a seat, lad,” Mad-Eye commands, gesturing at the room's only other seat, next to Kingsley. Xander glances at Charlie, who smiles reassuringly, then sits. Charlie's hands, heavy and steadying, immediately land on Xander's shoulders, grounding him.  
  
“Mr. Ma—Moody,” Xander says as the rest of his escort crowd in behind him. Someone closes the door and Harry casts  _Sonus Probationem_. “My name is Xander Harris. I'm, uh, a Muggle. And I just recently discovered that I can speak Parcels-Tongue. Um. More recently, I've been told I resemble someone named Tom Riddle, who caused you guys a lot of trouble, not too long ago.” Mad-Eye snorts, his whirling eye always coming back to focus on Xander. “Harry thought that it might be wise, since I'm sort of going to be involved in the wizarding world—“ Xander looks up at Charlie and receives another smile. “—that I should check in with the wizarding police so that there aren't any misunderstandings. And after the morning  _I've_  had, I couldn't agree more.  
  
“So what do I have to do so that no one else mistakes me for this Riddle-guy, and tries to zap me?”  
  
Mad-Eye's normal—relatively—eye narrows for a few moments, then he sits back in his chair with a sigh.  
  
“I don't even know where to begin,” he says plainly, pinching the bridge of his prominent nose. “Potter—have you questioned him?”  
  
“Under Veritaserum, yes, sir.” Harry steps forward and leans on the desk next to Kingsley, who's turned and is staring at Xander with undisguised interest. Xander's smile feels like it's been pasted on. “He's who he says he is—or at least he  _believes_  he's who he says he is. He doesn't know why he speaks Parseltongue, and he doesn't know who Riddle is, beyond what we've told him.”  
  
“Hmm. Have you tried  _Legilimency_?”  
  
Now, Potter looks uncomfortable. “No, sir.”  
  
“Well, you were right not to. Better that be done here, in front of witnesses. And with a stronger Legilimens than yourself.” Mad-Eye says with gruff approval. “But that's definitely our next step. Who knows what he knows, but doesn't  _know_  he knows?”  
  
Both men's gazes turn to Xander, who tries not to sink back into his seat.  
  
“Uh . . . what's a Legilimens?” he asks, suddenly certain he does  _not_  want to know.  
  
Charlie squeezes his shoulders firmly, steadyingly.  
  
That seals it. Xander officially does not want to know.  
  


*

  
  
But boy, does he find out. First from Hermione—who not only gives him the bare facts, but an almost intensive history of Legilimency and it's partner in crime, Occlumency—then from a pamphlet Mad-Eye shoves at him as they follow him deeper into the Ministry.  
  
 **What To Expect When Expecting Legilimency** , the pamphlet is called. The letters dance around across the narrow page and the picure of a cartoon wizard with half his head rendered transparent, winks at him. Xander shudders and skims the pamphlet before shoving it at Charlie, who puts it in his pocket.  
  
Sooner than he might like, Xander finds himself in a small, neat reception area, signing release forms with a feathered quill. All the while, Charlie—who had refused to go on to the hospital with Hermione and Ron—holds his hand.  
  
Once all the forms are signed, Mad-Eye stuffs them in his coat pocket and eyes Xander grimly.  
  
“Well, lad. It's time for it, then,” he says heavily, then limps his way toward one of three doors off the waiting area. He knocks, then turns the handle, letting himself in, Harry close on his heels.  
  
Xander and Charlie look at each other, the former worriedly, the latter with towering certainty.  
  
“Whatever happens . . . I love you. Remember that,” Charlie says, squeezing Xander's hand and kissing him tenderly. “I know exactly who you are, and I love you.”  
  
Choked up, it's a few seconds before Xander can find both the words, and the ability to say them. And when he does, those words seem woefully inadequate.  
  
So he hauls Charlie close and kisses him hard. Kisses him until Mad-Eye barks: “Harris! Weasley! Get in here!”  
  


*

  
  
Auror Langley is a cheerful older witch with a freckled face and hair red enough to be make her an honorary Weasley. But instead of the long, square Weasley features, she's all soft, curving features and heart-shaped face.  
  
“You must be Xander Harris,” she says, holding out a hand for shaking. Her grip is strong and warm. “I'm Petra Langley, and I'll be your Legilimens, today.”  
  
“Oh, well. I'm Xander, and I'll be your Legilimee,” he quips, and Auror Langley chuckles. Xander takes that as a good sign. He looks over at Charlie, who's sitting next to him, one arm slung around his shoulders, the other settled on the arm of Xander's chair, holding his hand. Behind them stand Mad-Eye and Harry as witnesses. In front of them leaning on the edge of her scarily neat desk, Auror Langley catches Xander's eye again when she takes out her wand.  
  
“Now,” she begins kindly. “Just try and relax. I'll be briefly checking your memories to see if what you remember coincides with what you've' told us, so far. It may be a little disorienting, but it won't be painful unless you try to resist me.”  
  
“That does not at all instill me with confidence, just so you know,” Xander says, eying the tip of her wand as she raises it and points it at him. “Just so we're clear . . . you're just going after the gist of my memories, right? Not anything, uh,  _specific_?” he asks, glancing at Charlie, who clears his throat and blushes.  
  
Auror Langley's gaze ticks amusedly from Xander to Charlie, and back again. She smiles wryly and says:  
  
“ _Legilimens_.”  
  


*

  
  
Xander still has a faint headache by the time he, Charlie, and Harry make their way back to the Floo system. Ron and Hermione have already gone on to St. Mungo's and all that's left for Xander to do now, besides get a full mystical check-up, is visit Gavin.  
  
“She packs a wallop!” he complains, not for the first time, and receives a kiss on the temple from a solicitous Charlie, also not for the first time. “So now that she's seen my memories and knows I'm not this Tom Riddle-Voldemort asshole, what happens, next?”  
  
“Next, those memories go into a pensieve—a device for storing memories so they don't fade or get forgotten—to be reviewed by Mad-Eye, myself, and several higher ups in the Ministry,” Harry Potter says, frowning. Xander frowns, too.  
  
“And that's every memory I've had, from birth till now?” When Harry nods, Xander groans. “And you guys get to  _see_  them?”  
  
“Well, we won't be looking at  _all_  of your memories, just scanning your timeline and making sure it matches up with what you've told us. As well as keeping an eye out for anything . . . unusual.” Off Xander's snort, Harry smiles. “I mean anything unusual that might have left you with at least one of Tom Riddle's abilities.”  
  
“You mean there might be others floating around in here?” Xander squeaks, pointing at his head. “What the hell?!”  
  
“Sorry, mate, it's a distinct possibility that you may have somehow got other talents of his, if you've got one.” Harry sighs and pats Xander's arm. “The fact is, though, we don't know how any of this happened. And even with a mystical check-up, we may  _never_  know.”  
  
“That's comforting.” Xander mutters, only to receive another kiss from Charlie. But not another word is spoken till they get to the fireplace marked  **St. Mungo's Hospital**.  
  
“After you two,” Harry says briskly, sweeping out an arm toward the fireplace. “The staff at St. Mungo's have been warned to expect your arrival, so you don't have to worry about scaring the Hell out of anyone. But I don't have to warn you not to make any sudden moves and to avoid any threatening speech or actions? Even in jest? Trust me, you don't want to end up in the Spell Damage ward because some wand-happy auror lost his shit.”  
  
“Right. No, yeah. Understood. No shenanigans for the Xand-man.” Xander swallows and nods once, the seriousness of his situation suddenly landing on his shoulders like the weight of the world. It makes him shiver and sigh. He steps grimly, dejectedly toward the fireplace.  
  
Charlie catches up with and slings an arm around him, angrily grabbing Floo powder from the mantle as he goes.  
  
“What in Merlin's name happened to you, Harry Potter?” he asks tightly, as he and Xander stand in the fireplace and face outwards: Xander distraced and still dejected, Charlie furious. He throws down the powder without waiting for an answer from Harry. But there's just enough time for Xander to see the shocked, hurt look on Harry's square, fierce face.  
  
Then all is smoke and shadows, and they're off on another whirlwind, magical trip to St. Mungo's Hospital . . . where waits poor Gavin, and hopefully, finally, some answers to Xander's many questions.


	8. An Afternoon at St. Mungo's

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Xander's first examination by a Mediwitch. Things do no go as planned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I play. I don't own.

This time, when tumbling out of the Floo, Xander only tumbles once—though he does manage to take Charlie with him.  
  
“Sorry, baby,” Xander groans, sitting up and letting the room spin slowly before closing his eyes to banish the dizziness and hopefully the nausea. He feels the rasp of stubble and the glide of soft lips as Charlie brushes a kiss across his cheek.  
  
“It takes some getting used to,” he says, getting to his feet, from the sound, then pulling Xander up without much help from Xander. Grinning despite still feeling a little seasick, Xander opens his eyes and looks into Charlie's.  
  
“My hero,” he murmurs, and Charlie smiles. The kiss they both lean in for is interrupted when Harry Potter tumbles out of the Floo and lands at their feet with a weary sigh.  
  
After a moment of hesitation, both Charlie and Xander offer him a hand. After another moment of hesitation—and a quick scan of their faces—Harry accepts both their hands and lets himself be pulled to his feet.  
  
 _Maybe there's hope for him, yet,_  Xander thinks, without quite understanding what he means. Then he's studying Harry closely: the tense lines of his wiry, under-fed frame, his brooding, angular face and too-fine features. The hair that's in want of combing—hell,  _styling_. He's a handsome, if sharp-featured man, and would tidy up rather well, if he or someone who cared took the time to do the tidying.  
  
 _Isn't that what a wife's supposed to do?_  Xander wonders, and remembers the pinched, pursed look on Harry's face when Ginny Potter was brought up.  
  
“What?” Potter asks suspiciously, and Xander realizes he's been caught staring. He quickly looks away and clears his throat.  
  
“Nothing. Is that the reception area? Huh.” Xander tugs Charlie with him toward the elderly, miserable-looking witch behind the huge, ancient desk. As he approaches, she doesn't look up from what looks to be a portable television—or the wizarding version of one, anyway—placed near the farthest edge. She merely thrusts a piece of parchment and a quill out to him.  
  
“Fill that out, and someone will be out to see to you shortly,” she says in the most tired, pissed-off tones Xander's heard since his last visit to the DMV, and a Cockney accent that could peel paint off a wall. He takes the parchment and quill, and turns to go to the waiting row of rickety seats lined up against one wall.  
  
He, Charlie, and Harry sit to a chorus of creaks. They are the only three people in the waiting area, which Xander thinks might or might not be odd, depending on how often witches and wizards fall ill.  
  
Sighing, he looks at the parchment and starts with the easiest thing, the first thing: his name. He tries to scrawl with the quill, but no ink comes out, like it had with the quill in Mad-Eye's office. He shakes it a few times and tries again. Still no luck.  
  
“Hmm. The spell on it must've worn off,” Charlie says, taking out his wand. But Xander covers Charlie's hand with his own.  
  
“Easy, Gandalf. I'll just ask Suzy Sunshine for another one.” Xander stands up and goes over to the reception desk. The witch still doesn't look up, even after he's cleared his throat. Her professionally done hair shines blue-white under the direct lighting and it reminds him of his Grandmother Harris. A thing that's easily worth a shudder. “Excuse me, but this quill is, uh, out of ink. May I have another?”  
  
She whips out her wand. “ _Repone Atramentum_ ,” she says, and suddenly ink is dripping from the quill, onto her desk.  _That_ , finally, makes her turn away from her little television-thing.  
  
“Steady-on!” She exclaims, pulling wadded-up tissues from out of nowhere to wipe up the ink, swearing to herself all the while. When Xander has the presence of mind to problem-solve, he holds the quill upside down . . . it stops spurting ink.  
  
“Sorry,” he says without much sincerity, and the witch looks up at him, glaring, something no doubt very cutting and British on her tongue, then her eyes widen.  
  
“Oh, blimey!” She stops blotting the desk and peers up at Xander intently. “You must be the young Muggle they found—the one what looks like—“ she glances around, then finishes in a whisper: “Tom Riddle!”  
  
“Uh,” Xander says, looking over at Charlie and Harry, who seem to be in a quiet conversation and completely oblivious to Xander's situation. “Yeah, I guess that's . . . me.”  
  
Her round eyes wider than saucer, she reaches out and snatches both parchment and quill from Xander. “Then you won't be needin' these! They're expecting  _you_ , they are—right this way,” she says, tying to smile. She gets up and skirts the desk, reaching out as if to take Xander's hand—then recoiling at the last moment, she simply beckons him on with a wave.  
  
“Hey, guys,” Xander calls over his shoulder, following her surprisingly spritely little-old-lady walk down a short corridor that leads to a staircaise—a back staircase, of sorts, Xander gets the feeling.  
  
Charlie and Harry catch up, flanking him like an honor guard and they all troop up the stairs—four flights of them—after the witch. They pass doors that lead out into wards, such as **Creature-Induced Injuries** —”That's where Gav'll be,” Charlie murmurs solemnly, taking Xander's hand—and  **Magical Bugs**.  
  
At the fourth floor, the witch says: “Here we are, gentlemen.”  
  
 **Spell Damage** , the door reads, and Xander frowns.  
  
“But I haven't  _been_  spell-damaged,” he protests, and the witch snorts.  
  
“Well, that remains to be seen, innit?” She squeezes past Charlie and Harry, and back down the stairs. “Good luck!”  
  
The clack of her shoes fading back the way they'd come, the three men share a glance and a shrug. Then Xander's turning to the door and reaching out for the next bit of his crazy destiny.  
  


*

  
  
The ward is, as Xander only half expects, as familiar as Sunnydale General.  
  
That's because, he realizes, hospitals everywhere are exactly the same. The same sense of people stuck in limbo, people in distress, people waiting to be well. The same rushing back and forth of doctors—or Medi-witches and -wizards, Charlie says they're called—and nurses. The same Central Desk of Bureaucracy where everyone convenes to catch up on gossip, get their orders, or just take a break from the demands of their patients.  
  
Xander takes all of this in, and almost smiles.  
  
He approaches the Desk and the wizard and witches behind it, Charlie and Harry at his side, and clears his throat. The three look up and their eyes do that saucer-thing.  
  
“Bless my soul, it's Harry Potter!” says the oldest witch among them. Then she glances at Xander, does a double-take, and gasps. “And you must be—must be—“  
  
“Xander. Harris,” Xander says, not bothering to hold out his hand for shaking. The wizard and the other witch are staring at him as if not sure what to expect, but neither do they seem particularly scared of him. Maybe it's because, like Hermione had said, most younger witches and wizards would never have seen this Tom Riddle-guy.  
  
 _But, apparently, enough older people have_  Xander thinks, eying the sixty-something nurse, who looks like she's about one more gasp from passing out.  _This is going to be one spectacular day_.  
  
“Right this way. Medi-witch Benza is waiting to see you,” the younger of the nurses finally says, after everyone's had a chance to stare at everyone, and realize nothing's going to happen. (Even the older nurse has regained some of her color.)  
  
The young nurse steps out from behind the Desk, smiling, and gestures for Xander to follow her deeper into the ward. When Charlie and Harry make to follow them, the nurse's smile turns apologetic. “The Medi-witch only wants to see Mr. Harris for this meeting.”  
  
Charlie shakes his head mulishly. “No, that's—“  
  
“—completely proper,” Harry finishes, putting a hand on Charlie's arm and shaking his own head when Charlie looks at him. “For confidentiality reasons, Charlie. They do it with everybody.”  
  
Xander glances between the two of them, then at the young nurse, who shrugs, her dark, friendly face marked by nothing more than curiosity. Yes, she definitely doesn't recognize Xander. A fact that makes him smile.  
  
“Fine,” Charlie is saying stiffly, and pulling Xander into his arms. He looks down into Xander's eyes, his own dark ones serious and worried. “You'll give a yell, if you need me?”  
  
“And how,” Xander says, cupping Charlie's face in his hands, scritching through spiky, red stubble. “But it'll be okay.”  
  
“How do you know?” Charlie asks desperately, leaning their foreheads together, his own uncertainty showing for the first time since this crappy day got started. “How do you  _know_?”  
  
“I just . . . do. One of my fancy, new magic powers,” Xander lies, putting on his best, most sure smile. Charlie laughs a little, and kisses Xander lingeringly. Till Xander's mostly forgotten where he is, let alone  _why_.  
  
“I'll be right here,” Charlie promises when the kiss ends. "Waiting for you."  
  
“'Kay. . . .” Xander breathes, and lets himself be tugged by Harry Potter out of Charlie's arms and toward the waiting, wide-eyed nurse.  
  
“C'mon, Xander. Plenty of time for that, later,” Harry says, shoving Xander after her. Xander, whose knees are still wobbly and weak from that kiss, stumbles along in her wake, grinning, his fears temporarily gone.  
  


*

  
  
For several minutes, Medi-witch Benza simply stares at Xander and says nothing.  
  
Since her initial: “Good afernoon,” when Xander entered her office, she's said nothing, merely leans forward on her desk, her pale blue eyes seeming to measure and quantify Xander without requiring any input from the man, himself.  
  
Finally, Xander starts squirming, and she sits back in her chair with a sigh.  
  
“Fascinating. I'm told you also speak Parseltongue.”  
  
Xander blinks. “Yeah. Yes. Apparently I do.”  
  
She  _hmms_  like Hermione, and smiles a little. It's neither a friendly nor an unfriendly smile, though it  _is_  curious. “May I have a demonstration?”  
  
Xander's brow furrows. “What do you want me to say?” he asks in Parcels-Tongue and Benza nods.  
  
“That'll do,” she says, sitting forward again, taking up a quill and scribbling on a bit of parchment. Like any doctor, her handwriting is terrible. “How long have you been able to speak Parseltongue?”  
  
“As far as I know, since five days ago, when my boyfriend introduced me to his dragons—um, he works on a dragon preserve in Romania,” Xander adds off Benza's questioning look.  
  
“So, before five days ago, you never noticed that you could understand what reptiles say to each other? Not snakes, or iguanas, or anything like that?”  
  
“Nope.” Xander shakes his head. “But then, I don't spend time around reptiles. Except at the zoo, when I was a kid. And if I'd understood what they were saying then, school field trips would've been a lot more fun.”  
  
“Er, yes,” Benza says, noting something else on her parchment. “Now, have you ever noticed that when you're upset, strange things happen? Lights flicker, wind springs up out of nowhere? Objects move of their own volition? Anything strange like that?”  
  
Xander shakes his head again. “Nope. My friend Willow is a witch, and she tried to teach me to levitate a pencil once, though. It didn't work. Didn't so much as roll acoss the table.”  
  
“Hmm.” She stares at him some more, then opens one of the drawers of her cluttered desk. She takes out what looks like an old, battered wand—a toy, perhaps, made for a child. It's got scrapes all over it, and two words carved into it.  
  
“Take this,” Benza says, holding the wand out. Xander reaches for it reluctantly. The wood is both soft and rough in his palm, and he can see now that the words carved into it are  **Melvin Benza**.  
  
“What—“ he begins, but Benza interrupts him.  
  
“Swish it around, a bit, please,” she says, demonstrating what she means with her index finger.  
  
“Oh-kay. . . .” Xander swishes the wand around rather limply. Then a little more deliberately when Benza frowns at him.  
  
“Exactly as I demonstrated, Mr. Harris. Like this—“ she makes the same persnickety swishing motion with her index finger again, and this time, Xander tries to copy her. It's several times before he gets it just right, but when he does, she nods, and takes out her own wand. But for once, the wand doesn't end up pointed at Xander.  
  
“Now, point at, oh, the quill I just put down, swish and flick like I showed you, and repeat after me exactly . . .  _Win-GARD-ium Levi-OH-sa_.”  
  
Xander's eyebrows quirk up. “If you're trying to get blood from this stone, lemme tell ya, many have tried and none have succeeded.” Pointing the grubby little wand at Benza's quill, Xander swishes and flicks carefully. “Wing . . . uh,  _Win-GARD-ium Levi-OH-sa_. . . .?”  
  
Nothing happens. And immediately thereafter, Xander's about to level an epic  _I-told-ya-so_  at Benza, when the quill . . .  _quivers._  
  
Xander's mouth drops open.  
  
“Hmm,” Benza says again. “There's at least squib-level talent there. Perhaps more, if you could learn to focus. . . .”  
  
“ _I_  did that?” Xander exclaims, pointing at the still shivering quill with the wand. The quivering increases, and the quill slowly, s l o w l y sits up on end. Ink instantly starts to dribble out of it and onto the desk. But Benza, unlike the Welcome Witch doesn't seem to care, or even notice. “No  _way_!”  
  
“Apparently there  _is_  a way—you know, if you focused your will on actually making it float, you probably could,” Benza notes laconically. “That's what the spell is for, after all, not merely standing things on end.”  
  
Xander sits back and the quill inclines toward him. “That's—I was saying a . . . a levitation spell?”  
  
“Precisely.”  
  
Shaking his head, Xander smiles a little. Then laughs a little.  
  
He aims the wand at the quill again, and the quivering starts up. He studies the way ink still dribbles from it, and the way the once-proud orange feather droops a little. The way the whole quill lists toward him. He imagines what it would look like if it suddenly lifted off the desk and just . . . hovered. . . .  
  
“ _Wingardium Leviosa_ ,” he says softly, swishing and flicking at the quill, and for a moment there's an incredible pressure behind his eyes, like the biggest migraine ever about to spill over into his brain. It makes his body spring out in sweat and shake, and his sinuses burn. What feels like static electricity dances over his skin and his stomach clenches into a tight, hard knot.  
  
But his eyes . . . his eyes are on the quill, just as Benza's are on him. She points her wand at him and mutters a few words he wouldn't be able to understand even if he'd noticed. The tip of her wand glows a soft, deep blue.  
  
Suddenly, the migraine sensation deflates and is gone—the shakes dissipate and the knot in his stomach releases.  
  
That static electricity feeling, however, only intensifies. It feels like fireflies dancing on his skin, and he laughs again, delightedly watching as the quill's feather brushes the ceiling.  
  
“ _I_  did that,” he says wonderingly. Then: “Wow. So, what happens now?”  
  
“Now?” Benza snorts. “Well, I suppose you get a wand, assuming you're not in anyway connected to Tom Riddle—“  
  
“And I'm  _not_ ,”Xander reiterates, making the feather dance along the beams of the ceiling by swishing the wand. “The Xand-man is absolutely, positively Riddle-free.”  
  
“Yes, well, once that's been established to the Ministry's satisfaction, a trip to Ollivander's is in store for you. Finest wands in the world—none better.” Benza states with the certainty of a dearly held truth. “For now, though, there are a few preliminaries to be got out of the way, and the tests of course.”  
  
Xander sighs and the feather dips. “Of course.  _Finite Incantatem_.”  
  
Benza's eyes widen as the quill drifts down toward the desk. She catches it in her palm and examines it closely, then does the same to Xander, her wand, which has stopped glowing, is now firmly pointed at him.  
  
“Where did you learn  _that_?” she asks, surprise and suspicion warring on her austere face. Xander sits back, placing the grubby wand on the table and holding his hands up in placation.  
  
“I heard my boyfriend say it. There was a—a spell on me. And when he said  _Fini—that_ —the spell ended.” He shrugs. “Sorry, I didn't mean to freak you out.”  
  
Benza studies him for a few moments more, then she nods, that suspicious look fading. “In future, you may want to . . . keep the spells you already know to yourself. At least until you've been officially, ah,  _taught_  those spells.”  
  
“Oh.” Xander thinks it over and realizes that someone might very easily mistake him for Tom Riddle if he went around doing spells he didn't  _officially_  know. After all, he was just a Muggle—  
  
No, he wasn't. Not anymore, it seemed. Neither a Muggle nor a Squib.  
  
“And you're sure that isn't rigged?” He points at the little wand, and Benza looks at it.  
  
“That? Hardly. It's a sort of training wand, for small children whose magic needs controlling earlier than most,” Benza says, a faint glow of pride in her voice. “That particular wand belonged to my son, when he was five.”  
  
Xander smiles wryly. “It figures I'd be at about the power level of a five year old.”  
  
Benza shakes her head. “You mistake me, Mr. Harris . . . you have the apparent  _skill-level_  and control of a child. As to how much actual power you have . . . only time and testing will tell  _that_.” She strokes the feather of the quill before placing it on the table.  
  
“But,” she warns sternly. “Depending on the results of the tests performed on you today, you may not be allowed anything more powerful than a wand like this—“ she gestures at the toy wand “—to help you keep your power in check, perform low-level spells, and keep  _yourself_  out of trouble. Now.” She leans back in her chair. “Most wizarding children come into their full powers at the onset of puberty, and from there, it's a matter of learning discipline and control.  _You_ should have undergone some sort of . . . awakening or awareness of your power around the ages of ten to thirteen. Do you recall anything strange happening to you . . . stranger than the usual trials of puberty, that is,” she adds when Xander rolls his eyes and opens his mouth to answer.  
  
“No,” he says t. “I just got moody and sullen like every other teenage dirtbag kid. I never felt right in my skin, always felt restless and antsy, could barely sleep or eat, got headaches all the time, had nightmares . . . I thought I was going nuts. And it  _did_  get so bad, at one point, my friend Willow's mom suggested therapy to my parents.” Xander looks down at his hand and suddenly finds it very interesting. “My dad got so pissed-off he beat the hell outta me for embarrassing him in front of an outsider. That was the end of my teenage angst phase. Rather, I got better at hiding it. But nothing, uh, magical began happening to me till I was fifteen.”  
  
Benza's frowning, but her curiosity's obviously peaked. “And what happened, then?”  
  
Xander smiles absently, but grimly, nonetheless. “Then, a new sheriff came to town and I got deputized. . . .”  
  


*

  
  
“Xander!”  
  
Charlie's warm, excited greeting lifts Xander's spirits—and boy, do they need lifting after telling—well,  _half_  his life story for the second time today. Though admittedly, Benza had been less of a detail-hound than Mad-Eye had been.  
  
But like Mad-Eye, she, too, hadn't asked him what brought him to Romania, and why, after half his life as a Scooby, he'd given it all up.  
  
Xander's both sorry and relieved that they hadn't. When he tells that story, he wants to tell it only once, and hopefully, it'll be only to the man who's hugging him so close and tight and perfect right now.  
  
Charlie leans back to kiss Xander in the middle of the ward, regardless of the staff rushing to and fro or floating patients by. Xander lets himself be kissed for a few moments, then breaks it to resume the hug, in dire need of that ocmfort.  
  
“Is everything alright?” Charlie asks, happy to return the hug as tight as Xander wants. And Xander sighs, revelling in the feeling of being close and kept by someone who loves him and is irevocably on his side.  
  
“Everything's  _crazy_ , is what it is.” He looks around for a now-familiar dark head and scowl. “Where's Harry?”  
  
“He went to visit Gav and sign some collector's cards.” Charlie chuckles. “He gets restless in hospitals. Doesn't like them.”  
  
“Who does?” Xander only reluctantly lets Charlie go. “C'mon, let's go catch up and see Gavin.”  
  
“Alright.” Charlie takes his hand and leads him out of the ward. They get more than a few stares as they go, but neither of them pay any mind.  
  
It isn't until they're in the stairwell that Charlie asks what's on his mind. “So what did this Medi-witch Benza have to say?”  
  
Xander sighs again. “Well, I'm definitely not a Muggle or a Squib,” he says, smiling a little. Then a little more. Charlie looks puzzled for a few moments, then his eyes widen.  
  
“No way,” he breathes incredulously. Xander laughs.  
  
“According to the Doc, there  _is_  a way. For now, she's chalking it up to me just being a Muggle-born  _very_  late bloomer, but she said that's just for now, till they know more about the whole . . . Riddle-resemblance thing.” Xander shrugs haplessly. “Till then, I'm just the world's oldest, new wizard.”  
  
Charlie's smile is slow and wondering. Then he pulls Xander to him for another one of those amazing hugs.  
  
“Oh, love,” he murmurs on Xander's temple, peppering it with tiny kisses. “This is  _wonderful_!”  
  
“It's . . . certainly something,” Xander allows, remembering the feeling like fireflies along his skin, when he'd performed that spell. “I'm still kinda reeling.”  
  
“Of course you are, of course.” Charlie holds him at arms length and looks him over rather voraciously. “Bloody hell, but I can't wait to see you in a set of robes, love. Gryffindor gold and red, I'm thinking . . . worn in the old-style: with nothing underneath. ”  
  
“What's a Gryffindor?” Xander asks curiously, swatting Charlie's Roman hands and Russian fingers away from his naughty bits. “Is that some kinda magical beast?”  
  
Charlie grins and pulls Xander tight against him. He's half-hard, and Xander rolls his eyes fondly. “Merlin, do I have a lot to tell you! Especially now. Though you're not likely to end up at Hogwarts—”  
  
“I'm sorry, hog- _what_ s?” Xander's nose wrinkles.  
  
“No, Hog _warts_. But as fine a school as it is, it's still meant for children.” Charlie frowns. “You'll still need training, though, and there's no finer training to be had, anywhere in the world than Hogwarts. Hmm . . . maybe private tutoring. . . ? And as smart as you are, you'll be sitting your O.W.L.s before you know it—then your N.E.W.T.s, if you're of a mind—then—why, anything you want! Absolutely anything!”  
  
Xander shakes his head and puts his hands on Charlie's chest, one hand curling slightly over the strong heartbeat underneath it. “What on  _Earth_  are you going on about, Charlie Weasley?”  
  
Charlie smiles—so big and infectiously, Xander can't help but smile, himself. And seeing that smile, Charlie reaches out and brushes his knuckles across Xander's cheek.  
  
“Our future, love . . . our future.”  
  
Warmed by that  _our_ , Xander lets Charlie lead him down the stairs, gushing all the while about magic and magical instruction and hog's warts—something which comes up frequently in Charlie's blather, and may, in fact, be a  _school_ —and taking him to Ollivander's for a wand . . . and it's so easy to get caught up in Charlie's excitement.  
  
But easier, still, to wonder, like they all do, who he really is. If, behind the person Xander's always thought of as  _himself_ , there's really someone else. Someone that's been hiding all Xander's life . . . even from Xander.


	9. In Deploratae Est

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We find out Xander's connection to Tom Riddle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: Mine . . . not.

The Spell Damage ward is quiet.  
  
Xander and Charlie walk through it carefully, quietly, practically on tiptoe, after whispering Gavin's name to a helpful Medi-wizard who points the way.  
  
When they get to the room—a private one—it's already occupied by five people: a grim-faced Harry Potter; a teary-eyed Hermione Weasley, who's pressing what must be Ron's pocket square to her reddened eyes; Ron Weasley, looking sober and pale; and a smallish older man who bears such a strong resemblance to Gavin, he could only be Gavin's father.  
  
And, laying in the bed, swaddled in bandages, is Gavin. What little skin is visible between the bandages is bright red and angry-looking.  
  
Everyone except Gavin looks up when Xander and Charlie poke their heads in.  
  
Charlie takes the lead entering the room, but he doesn't let go of Xander's hand. All the mirth of just a few minutes ago is gone. Charlie Weasley has become The Boss.  
  
“Mr. MacTavish?” he says, holding out his hand to Gavin's father. Mr. MacTavish sniffs and takes Charlie's hand, shaking it firmly.  
  
“Aye.” He nods. “And you'd be Charles Weasley. Gavin does go on about you in his letters.”  
  
Charlie winces. “Has he improved any since last night?”  
  
Mr. MacTavish sighs. “He improves every hour, they tell me. In tiny increments. In ways only a trained Healer could see. To  _my_  untrained eye, he looks almost the same as he did when I first came here.”  
  
Charlie turns toward the bed and approaches it slowly.  
  
“Hey, mate. It's Charlie,” he says quietly, but brightly to the still figure in the bed. “Finally got here to see you. Been wrangling that new Ironbelly. It's been one thing after another with him, I'll tell ya. Sure wish you were there by my side. . . .”  
  
As Charlie speaks to the unconscious dragon-tamer, Mr. MacTavish's blue eyes—Gavin's eyes—fall on Xander. “And I haven't made your acquaintance yet, young man.”  
  
Xander hurriedly holds out his hand for shaking. “My name is Xander. Xander Harris. I only met Gavin briefly, but . . . well, he made an impression. He's a good man.”  
  
“Aye. But foolhardy,” Mr. MacTavish says. His grip is strong and dry.“All he could ever talk about from the time he was wee—even before he got his Hogwarts letter—was dragons.”  
  
 _Hogwarts letter?_  Xander thinks, mystified. But out loud he says: “Charlie tells me he was really good at his job. That the dragons trusted him and even liked him.”  
  
“Not well enough, it would appear,” Mr. MacTavish sighs, shaking his head. Xander covers their still-clasped hands with his other one.  
  
“What happened that day was an accident, Mr. MacTavish—the dragon that was brought in was new and scared and he thought Charlie's guys were tying to capture him and harm him. He thought he was defending himself and things . . . got out of hand for a bit.”  
  
Mr. MacTavish looks at Xander with tear-filled, but measuring eyes. “You'd be the one who soothed the savage beast, then? The Parseltongue lad who talked the dragon out of doing worse than it had already done?”  
  
Coloring, Xander nods. “I mean, I  _helped_  convince him not to do anything too hasty, but Norbert was the one who really—“  
  
But Xander can't speak for the hard, tight embrace in which Mr. MacTavish has caught him.  
  
The older man lets out a rough sound that might be a sob. “Thank you, Xander Harris, for saving my boy's life.”  
  
“But I didn't—“ Xander glances at Charlie, who's still leaning down, talking very quietly to Gavin. Then at an unreadable Harry Potter, who nods once, solemnly. “It was no problem, Mr. MacTavish. No problem at all.”  
  


*

  
  
They stay at Gavin's bedside till after three, talking softly and listening to Charlie tell stories about Gavin's adventures in dragon-taming.  
  
A few times, during the humorous stories, Mr. MacTavish laughs, though his eyes fill with tears each time he does.  
  
Even Harry Potter cracks a smile, a time or two.  
  
But as four o'clock nears, Xander makes his manners to everyone, citing his tests as the reason he's going, but promising to come back afterward, if it's still visiting hours.  
  
“I'll escort you, Xand,” Charlie says, leaning down to whisper something in Gavin's ear. Then he lightly kisses Gavin's bandage-covered forehead. “I'll see you soon, mate.”  
  
Xander finds himself blinking back tears of his own.  
  
Once in the back stairwell, Charlie leans on the railing and buries his face in his hands.  
  
“I'm supposed to protect them,” is all he says. Xander pulls Charlie's hands away from his face and wraps those strong arms around his neck. Charlie's face is dry, but red with the obvious effort of holding back the tears his dark eyes are shining with.  
  
Xander cups Charlie's face in his hands, letting his own tears fall. “Now, you listen to me, Charlie Weasley: you did the best anyone could have done, under the circumstances. You, yourself, said Ironbellys were practically out of legend. You were dealing with an X-factor. You couldn't know what would happen.”  
  
“It's my  _job_  to know, or what good am I?” Charlie bursts out, one tear rolling down his left cheek. He swipes it away with an impatient growl. “There hasn't been an accident of this magnitude since the reservation was opened. My predecessors never let anything like this happen!”  
  
“Your predecessors weren't dealing with a clever, desperate Ironbelly,” Xander reminds his lover, his own heart breaking for the pain Charlie's in. “Trust me on this, baby, that Ironbelly is _smart_. He chose his moment carefully, played possum to lull you guys, then struck. Have any of your other dragons done that?”  
  
Charlie shakes his head no, after nearly a minute of mulling it over, and Xander brushes another tear away with his thumb. “See? This was unprecedented. There were going to be mistakes and slips. It's just the nature of the job that even small mistakes can mean someone gets hurt. Badly.” He sighs. “But in the end, you got everything sorted out. Kept the dragon calm and from hurting anymore wizards.”  
  
“Only thanks to what  _you_  did, love,” Charlie breathes, kissing Xander desperately, longingly. “You saved all our lives.”  
  
“All I did was stall for time and get the Ironbelly to talk to Norbert.  _She_  did all the heavy-lifting.” Xander says plainly, and Charlie kisses him again. He tastes like tears and the remains of lunch. “Trust me, I'm no hero.”  
  
“I love you.” Charlie's voice is rough, but heartfelt. “You're  _my_  hero.”  
  
“And you're  _mine_ ,” Xander replies between kisses. “So, that means we're both heroes.”  
  
“But Xander—“  
  
“Nuh!” Xander says tersely. “No  _but Xander_ , anything. You're a good, brave, heroic man, who knows his job and does it better than anyone else could. And the next time you bring in an Ironbelly, you'll know exactly what to expect. Right?”  
  
Charlie hangs his head a little, avoiding Xander's eyes, but Xander tilts it back up till their eyes meet. “Right?”  
  
Finally Charlie nods. “Right,” he agrees, but shakily.  
  
“ _Right_?” Xander says again, and this time Charlie swallows, but nods again more certainly.  
  
“Right.”  
  
And if that right doesn't exactly sound full of towering confidence, neither is it as shaky or doubtful as the last one. So Xander nods and pecks Charlie on the lips. “Good. That's settled. And there'll be no more talk about shoulda, woulda, or coulda. What happened happened, and it's over with. We learned from it, and now, we're moving on.”  
  
“Right.” It's as rough as that  _I love you_ , but just as heartfelt. Whatever else Charlie wants, he doesn't want to be steeped in blame and guilt and doubt.  
  
In that moment, Xander falls in love with him, all over again. “Feel like walking fledgling wizard to his Not-Tom-Riddle test?”  
  
Charlie almost manages a smile in return, and kisses Xander tenderly.  
  
“I'd be honored,” he murmurs on Xander's lips, and Xander shivers pleasantly, remembering Charlie's promise to wear him out. Assuming this day—this long, awful, amazing day—ever ends.  
  
Xander sighs, and sees the same wry impatience in Charlie's dark eyes. “Then lay on, MacDuff. Soon begun is half done.”  
  


*

  
  
“Uh . . . what do you think is in this?” Xander mutters to Charlie when Medi-witch Benza hands him a potion the color of crude and with much the same smell. Charlie grimaces.  
  
“Best you not ask. Best you just knock it back all in one go.”  
  
 _Ew_ , Xander thinks. But aloud, he says: “Ew.”  
  
However, still under Benza's watchful eyes—she'd relented when Xander asked if Charlie could stay through the testing, so Xander kind of owes her—he sighs and tips the beaker up to his head, holds his breath, and gulps the potion. Or tries to. The problem is, it's got the same _consistency_  as crude, too, and lingers in his mouth and throat like a syrup.  
  
He makes a pitiful, grossed-out noise when he accidentally tastes what he's swallowing, and tries even harder to force it down before it comes rushing back up.  
  
“There we go . . . that's it's, love, right down,” Charlie says and Xander, despite himself, nearly laughs. Charlie's had plenty of opportunity over the past few days to say that to Xander, though under very different circumstances.  
  
When the last of the crude-potion is sliding down his throat, Xander nearly gags, but hands the glass bottle to Benza, who takes it with a nod of approval.  
  
Then there's another Medi-witch and -wizard coming forward with beakers of equally promising-looking stuff. It's now that Xander starts to wonder . . . “What exactly are all these potions for? What do they do?” he asks around the awful taste in his mouth and slithering back down his throat.  
  
The Medi-wizard brightens, as if glad to have a chance to talk about his work. Xander is reminded, again, of Hermione . . . and also of Willow. “Well, that first potion we had you take will cleanse your system of the remnants of any other potions you've taken internally over the past few days, so we can get a clear reading of your blood—“  
  
“But what about the potion the reservation healer gave me—the one for my concussion?” Xander asks, and Benza approaches with her wand out and pointed at him.  
  
“The effects of potions like what you've been given don't linger long in the system, anyway, They do their job and dissipate. What I just gave you has the task of cleaning out whatever remnants may linger. Plus, it's a good general system cleanser, besides. Oh, and you may want to hurry up and take the other two potions, as you'll be wanting the loo within a minute or two.”  
  
Xander glances at Charlie, who shrugs apologetically.  
  
Then Xander's taking the first of the remaining two potions. It tastes pureed gym socks. “Oh, dear God!” he exclaims around the final swallow. Then he's gesturing for the Medi-witch to give him the third, so he can quaff it before he loses his nerve.  
  
“Good lad,” Charlie murmurs gently, kissing Xander's temple as he gulps something that tastes like curdled vanilla pudding and has the consistency of an egg-cream that's been left out in the sun. “That's the worst of it, over.”  
  
“It'd better be,” Xander gasps around the mingling of those tastes. He belches, excuses himself, then clutches his stomach as it begins to roil. “Jesus, I think I'm gonna yark . . . or maybe the other thing!” Xander hops off the examination table and pinches his nose shut to hold off the nausea. “Or maybe both!”  
  
“The loo is that way,” Benza points at a door right across from the examination table, and no sooner does she point than Xander's racing through it. He makes it just in time to regurgitate everything he's ever eaten, thought about eating, or could possibly eat. Then he just retches for what feels like eternity, his insides turning over and doing their best to turn inside out.  
  
When he's fairly certain there's nothing more to come out of him, retching aside—and who knew bile came in that shade of green?—he flushes the toilet and gets to his feet. Washes his hands, and looks in the mirror over the sink.  
  
He looks wan and tired, faintly ill. His hair looks lank and in dire need of cutting, as it straggles to his shoulders and slightly below. His David Bowie-eyes are both reddened from puking, his cheeks hollow, his skin paper-white under the last of his California complexion.  
  
“Hang in there, kid,” he tells his reflection. “The worst has  _gotta_  be over.”  
  
His reflection doesn't seem too convinced. And well it shouldn't, because just then, Xander's stomach gurgles again . . . the gurgle then turns into an intestinal rumble that does  _not_  bode well.  
  
His reflection snorts. “Shows what you know,” it says, before walking away. Surprised, Xander stares into the mirror after it until those intestinal rumbles reach a point of urgency he can no longer ignore.  
  


*

  
  
“I feel so  _gross_ ,” Xander complains when he emerges from the bathroom, one hand on his stomach, the other pulling the door shut behind himself. His reflection had glared at him accusingly as he exited, holding its nose shut and making waving motions.  
  
Charlie, sitting next to the examination table, jumps up, arms open, smiling. Xander holds out a hand. “Seriously, Charlie. Puke is probably the best of the scents I'm wearing, right now.”  
  
His lips twitching, Charlie takes out his wand and points it at Xander. “ _Scourgify_ ,” he says in a voice too even to be doing anything other than hiding laughter.  
  
Xander feels a now familiar tingle along his skin, and in his mouth and other places that the sun doesn't shine. It's an eerie feeling, but after it passes, Xander  _does_  feel cleaner. He even lets Charlie hug and kiss him.  
  
“Where're the Medi-wonders?” he asks, glancing around. They are, indeed, alone.  
  
Charlie runs a soothing hand up and down Xander's back. “St. Mungo's is a teaching hospital, you know, and, well, they've gone to round up the residents who'll be observing your tests—”  
  
“The  _what_ s who'll be whatting my  _what_ s?”  
  
Charlie smiles sheepishly. “This battery of tests is performed so rarely, that it's literally a once-in-a-lifetime chance for them to see it done. But your Medi-witch assures me they're all professionals, and that there will be no untoward commentary or anything like that.”  
  
Xander's still agog, and Charlie reaches down to grab something off the exam table. “Though you will need to wear this,” he adds, holding up the very familiar hospital Johnny.  
  
Trying to wrap his mind around this new situation—and what hysterics his reflection must be having, right now—Xander takes the hospital Johnny. It's blue with lilac-colored flowers on them that are probably lilacs. It's, of course, open at the back.  
  
“At what point did I lose control of this day?” he moans, and Charlie makes an apologetic face and starts unbuttoning Xander's shirt. He tuts comfortingly, but Xander shakes his head. “No, seriously, Charlie. I woke up, there were sexy-times, I got a mostly clean bill of health—and medicine that tasted like grape Fanta, I might add—then bam! Total one-eighty!”  
  
“I know, love.”  
  
“I mean, do I just have some of the most fucked up luck in the world, or does everyone's day go like this?” Xander demands. Charlie's smiling a little, and circles his finger around Xander's right nipple.  
  
“I think everyone has days like this, every once in a while,” he murmurs as Xander's breath catches. “The trick is to focus on the little things that get you through.”  
  
“Charlie. . . .”  
  
“Xander.”  
  
“A hard-on in a hospital Johnny is a horrible look on anyone.”  
  
Charlie's finger drifts down Xander's chest, to the fly of his jeans and hooks in the waistband. He pulls Xander closer and kisses his shoulder. “My plan was that you wouldn't be hard for long enough to be hard in the hospital Johnny.”  
  
“Ah . . . I see . . . that's a, uh . . . that's some plan. . . .” Xander exhales as Charlie unbuttons and unzips him. He pushes Xander's jeans and boxers down, easing them past the beginnings of Xander's erection, then lets them puddles around Xander's feet.  
  
He kneels in front of Xander, his eyes never leaving Xander's, though they do close briefly when Xander caresses his face. He leans in and kisses Xander's abdomen, his hand closing around the shaft of Xander's now very interested cock.  
  
The hospital Johnny falls to the floor, forgotten.  
  


*

  
  
By the time Benza returns with her class of observers—there must be twenty of them . . . no wonder they picked such a big exam room—Xander is a limp puddle of man and hospital Johnny on the exam table, and Charlie's sitting in the chair next to said table looking smug.  
  
He and Xander are holding hands and not speaking—but it's a comfortable, intimate silence, one that makes Benza double-take when she spots them, and her eyes narrow suspiciously. Xander hurries to sit up straight and adjust his clothing, such as it is, There is no hard-on to mar the pristine front of the hospital Johnny.  
  
Benza turns to address her class and draws her wand. “You're all very lucky to witness what is a once in a lifetime battery of tests,” she begins, briskly upbeat. Xander rolls his eyes and squeezes Charlie's hand. When Charlie looks at him, Xander grins rather besottedly.  
  
“I love you,” he says, and Charlie chuckles. “I love you, too.”  
  
They sit there, smiling at each other, Xander only half listening to what Benza's saying:  
  
“. . . physical paternity test, mystical paternity test, a test of Mr. Harris's magical power—which test we could have omitted, since Mr. Harris displays some magical talent, his control commensurate with that of any newly-discovered wizard—we're also testing Mr. Harris for any mystical or magical connections that he may have, whether knowingly or not, to—well, to anyone who is or was part of the wizarding world.  
  
“There's also a fascinating, but little-known test for animagi ability, one for shapeshifting ability, one for possible metamorphmagery, and another one for—“  
  
Xander tunes back out, rolling his eyes to Charlie. “Hey, how can they do a paternity test without my actual father's, you know, DNA?”  
  
“Well, really, they're just testing it against Riddle's blood and magical signature. And fortunately or unfortunately for us, we have samples of those. Kept under Ministry lock and key, but in this case. . . .”  
  
“In this case, they were willing to part with some plasma and some magical whatever,” Xander finishes with a sigh. “Shit, Charlie, what if it turns out I  _am_  somehow connected to Riddle? What if it turns out he's, like—my great-uncle, or my great-grandfather, or some weird thing like that? What if—“  
  
“Hush, love,” Charlie says, reaching out to brush Xander's hair out of his face. “That's not going to happen. And even if it did, that wouldn't make  _you_  Tom Riddle. And it wouldn't make me love you any less. Anything else we can deal with together.”  
  
Xander sighs again and links his fingers with Charlie's. “You sure are good at this.”  
  
“At what?”  
  
“At making a possible descendant of an evil wizard feel like  _not_  a possible descendant of an evil wizard,” Xander quips, then smiles. “And at making me feel like everything's gonna be okay, after all.”  
  
“That's because it  _is_.” Charlie leans in for a kiss and Xander meets him halfway. It's not a long one, but it gets the message across quite well. And when it ends, Charlie says:“It can't be otherwise because it's  _us_. Because I love you more than I can stand to think about directly. So everything  _will be_  okay, because it  _has to_  be.”  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
“Oh, yeah.”  
  
Xander grins. “Well. Far be it from me to go all Negative Nancy when you're being such a Positive Pete.” He leans their foreheads together. “I guess, at any rate, I'll be glad to have this all over with. And if the results mean I can't get a wand and start levitating all the quills I want, then, well, I've gone my whole life without using magic. I suppose I can go the rest of it without. Besides,  _you_ , Mr. Weasley, are all the magic I need.”  
  
“Xander,” Charlie begins, after a few silent moments, his voice gone rough again. But whatever he means to say goes unsaid, because Benza clears her throat and they both look over at her and the class. Xander has no idea how long they've been  _observing_  he and Charlie, but all the women in the class have almost literal hearts in their eyes and all the guys look extremely uncomfortable. Benza, herself, doesn't look too comfortable. And there's more exasperation than hearts in her eyes.  
  
“If you're quite ready, Mr. Harris, Mr. Weasley, we're ready to begin the testing.”  
  
“Ah,” Xander says nervously, sitting up. Charlie does the same, but doesn't let go of Xander's hand. “Fire away, then. Just not, you know, literally. I've had enough fire to last me the next six lifeti—“  
  
“ _Paternite Revelarum!_ " Benza says, rolling her eyes and leveling her wand at Xander, who throws up an arm instinctively as she swishes and flicks economically.  
  
He might as well have saved the effort, for he's suddenly surrounded by a warm, yellow glow, like being under a giant ambient lamp. It tickles his skin enough that he laughs out loud briefly, examining his arm, certain he'll find ants on it, or bees, maybe. But there's nothing but arm.  
  
Benza, meanwhile is staring at the glow with once more narrowed eyes. Then she consults a piece of parchment hastily yanked from the folds of her green robes, as do several of her students.  
  
“But . . . that can't be right, can it, Professor?” One of them ventures, a cute young Medi-wizard with a huge afro and glasses—the first wizard Xander's seen with them, so far—through which he squints at Xander disbelievingly. Xander looks down at himself, then at Charlie, who shrugs, looking as puzzled as Xander feels.  
  
“Perhaps,” Benza says worriedly—worryingly, when nothing follows that  _perhaps_. Then she frowns. “Mr. Weasley, please let go of Mr. Harris's hand for a moment.”  
  
Charlie does so, even though his hand doesn't go far.  
  
The glow around Xander doesn't change from that warm, lamp-light yellow.  
  
And everyone stares and stares.  
  
And stares.  
  
Finally, Benza pastes a smile about as real as a six dollar bill on her face and says: “ _Finite Incantatem_! Well!” She turns to the students, who still look confused—and a few look quite gobsmacked. “That'll be the only test we're performing today since, as you can see, the results of that test are hardly reliable—“  
  
“But, Professor Benza—“ the Medi-wizard with the afro starts to say something, but Benza quells him with a look.  
  
“That'll be quite enough, Mr. Zabini. And that'll be all for the day—I'd like to thank you all for participating, and to again remind you of the confidentiality papers you signed before attending this viewing—“  
  
Xander looks at Charlie again.  _What in the hell?_  he mouths, and Charlie shakes his head, watching the disappointed, confused students file out the door—Medi-wizard Zabini going last of all, with many glances back at Xander.  
  
Then Benza's closing the door and leaning on it with a sigh.  
  
“Tough day?” Xander asks laconically. Benza lets out a startled bark of a laugh.  
  
“You don't know the half of it, Mr. Harris.” She laughs again, shaking her head incredulously. Xander's heart sinks.  
  
“So, lemme guess: Tom Riddle is my distant, great- . . . something or other?”  
  
“Er, no. Not exactly. . . .”  
  
“Then what's the up, Doc? I'm dying of suspense, here!”  
  
Benza gives him a look of such pity, that Xander's quite suddenly certain he  _doesn't_  want to know what the up is. He sits back as Benza makes her stately way over to him and Charlie, who's resumed holding Xander's hand.  
  
But Benza simply holds out the piece of parchment and Xander takes it. He finds himself looking at a familiar sight from science class. And despite the parchment it's on, there's still a glossy, photograph-like finish. But, true to wizarding norms, the damn thing's revolving like a planet. “A DNA helix?”  
  
“Yes, that's what Muggleborn wizards call it. And that particular, ah, helix, belongs to Tom Riddle.”  
  
Xander nearly drops the parchment, as if evil could leap off it and taint him. But he holds it, nonetheless. He's probably already tainted, in some form or other. The parchment goes crunch in his fist. “Okay. Riddle's DNA. What about mine?”  
  
Benza swishes her wand around in a complicated gesture, aiming it to the left of Xander and Charlie. “ _Prior Incantato_!”  
  
The wand seems to light up, momentarily, glowing an eldritch green, before emitting a yellow pulse.  
  
Suddenly, displayed on the wall next to Charlie is Riddle's DNA helix, in all it's helix-y glory, revolving like a planet and the size of a big-screen television. Xander blinks.  
  
“Oh-kay. Been there, done that. But what about  _my_  DNA?”  
  
Benza winces, then straightens her shoulders. “Mr. Harris . . . that  _is_  your DNA.”  
  
Xander frowns. “No, it's  _Tom Riddle's_  DNA.” He looks back at the wall. “It's the same thing that's on this parchment.” He holds up the crumpled picture.  
  
“Yes, I'd noted that, too,” Benza says dryly, but it covers obvious unease. Xander can't take his eyes off the revolving doom on the wall, even as ice dances up and down his spine. If ever DNA could look repellent, wrong, just plain  _evil_  . . . this DNA does. “You have the same DNA sequence as Tom Riddle. There is no difference between his DNA . . . and yours. None, whatsoever. You are  _physically_ , for all intents and purposes, the same person.”  
  
Xander shakes his head because the words make sense, but what they're trying to convey does not. He simply doesn't  _understand_  what Benza's getting at.  
  
But what he  _does_  understand is Charlie's hand dropping suddenly away from his own. He understands the sudden feeling of bereavement that is perfectly summed up by a cold hand that was, mere moments ago, warm.  
  
It's an ugly feeling—as ugly as the damned helix on the wall, and Xander wants no part of it, none whatsoever.  
  
Instinctively, he hurls the feeling away from himself—at the wall where Riddle's cursed DNA still spins on, and instantly, a huge hole, at least the length and width of the helix and a few inches deep, is gouged from the exam room wall by nothing Xander can  _see_  . . . but he can feel it, alright. Leaving him like heat on a cold night.  
  
Bits and chunks of plaster drop to the floor. And still, the DNA helix twirls, unharmed, and malignant by its very nature.  
  
“Ohhh,” Xander says, suddenly  _exhausted_ , and extremely confused, and there are tears running down his face because even though he can feel Charlie's horrified gaze on him, he can't feel the love and warmth usually senses in that gaze . . . all he has is his cold, empty hand and the ability to smash holes in walls. . . .  
  
That sounds about right. That sounds like something Tom Riddle would do: Smash a hospital to bits because it hurts too much to do anything else. . . .  
  
 _But I'm_ not _Tom Riddle! I can't be! He's dead, and I'm alive! I can't be him!_  Xander thinks desperately, and a soft, sibilant voice, one he's never thought in before, whispers from the back of his brain:  
  
 _There's your proof otherwise, boy. It's in the writing on the wall._  
  
And it  _is_ , taunting him, laughing at him, making a ruin of his life just by its mere existence. . . .  
  
Cracks begin spreading outward from the hole in the wall, up toward the ceiling, and down toward the floor. Xander knows he's responsible for them, but he doesn't know how to stop it. How to stop manifesting whatever's going on inside of him on the outside world.  
  
If there's a spell for that, for self-containment, he doesn't know it, and likely never will, now. He doubts Riddle ever learned it, either.  
  
“ _Finite!_ ” Benza says, and the helix disappears. With its disappearance, the taunting, laughing voice finally stops, as does the cracking of the wall—now the floor and ceiling, as well. In the silence that follows, Xander looks at Benza—he doesn't dare look at Charlie, not even out of the corner of his eye.  
  
“Thank you,” he whispers tiredly.  
  
“ _Somnus Profunde_ ” she says—with more kindness than Xander would have expected. “Sleep.”  
  
“'Kay.” Xander swoons backward, crashing to the exam table. But that's okay. For once, he feels safer in the darkness.


	10. Family Tree

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Can Charlie still love Xander now that he how—if not why—Xander's connected to Tom Riddle? And what does Harry Potter have to say about it all?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I play. I don't own.

Charlie's staring out the window of the Spell Damage ward's reception area—has been for hours—when Harry Potter finds him.  
  
Harry comes to the window and leans on the other side, staring out, too. For a while, neither of them say anything. But Harry, talker that he is, is the first to eventually break the silence.  
  
“This is all so fucked,” he says, and Charlie snorts, tears filling his eyes.  
  
“You think?” He glances at Harry, finds himself being watched, and looks away again. Out at the busy London evening. “It appears you were right, after all. Tom Riddle is back.”  
  
“Horseshit.” Harry turns away from the window to look at Charlie full on. “If that was Tom Riddle, he wouldn't be sleeping, right now, he'd be killing. The inhabitants of this hospital would be dead—or held hostage to his demands.” Harry sighs. “I dare say, if that was Tom Riddle in there, we'd both be dead, for all that we've had our guard down around him.”  
  
Charlie closes his eyes before tears can fall. “You know what the test found, don't you? That Xander's got the same—what's it? DNA?—as Tom Riddle. The Medi-witch even said:  _physically, you're the same person_ —“  
  
“ _Physically_  being the operative word.” Harry heaves another sigh. “Spiritually, ethically, morally—what have you,  _I'm_  more like Tom Riddle than Xander is.” When Charlie looks over at Harry, startled, Harry smiles blandly. “Well, it's true. After all, I was one of his bloody horcruxes, wasn't I?”  
  
Charlie shakes his head. “But you couldn't help that, could you? You were a baby.”  
  
“And Xander can't help his condition, right now. Merlin, he doesn't even know what his condition  _is_. And neither do we.” Harry reaches out and grasps Charlie's biceps. “All we know is that he somehow shares Riddle's DNA. That doesn't automatically make him evil.”  
  
“Then what  _does_  it make him?” Charlie demands, wiping at his eyes because holding back the tears just ain't working anymore.  
  
Harry frowns. “Well, I should think that would be obvious. It makes him who he  _says_  he is. Xander Harris. A man who's just received the absolute worst shock any man could ever receive, and who's counting on his lover to stand by him through this . . . clusterfuck.” He squeezes Charlie's arm, his green eyes piercing and intent. Charlie has to look away. “Or did you suddenly stop loving him because his of his DNA? Are you that fickle?”  
  
“Fickle!” Charlie glares at Harry. “I  _still_  love him. Even though he's somehow Tom-bloody-Riddle! Even though the face that I want to wake up to every morning is the face of a remorseless serial murderer. Even though I've held that serial murderer's body, and made love to it—“ he breaks off, looking out the window again.  
  
“Even though you've held that body when it was broken and nearly dead from saving your life and a dozen others? Because, you know—that's something Tom Riddle would've done. Saved the lives of a bunch of mudblood and halfblood dragon-wranglers,” Harry says inflectionlessly.  
  
Charlie swallows, remembering how fragile Xander had looked, laying on the scorched earth in the wake of the Ironbelly, his body twisted and shattered and so very  _still_. . . .  
  
“He needs you now, more than ever,” Harry says quietly, lowly, his hand dropping away from Charlie's arm. “You have to be brave enough to face him and face the world with him, or—“  
  
“Or what?”  
  
Harry looks Charlie over measuringly, and frowns as if he's not certain he likes what he sees.  
  
“Or you don't deserve him. Don't deserve the way he looks at you, like you hung the bloody moon. Don't deserve the way he depends on you because he just  _knows_  you'll be there. Don't deserve  _having_  someone who'll be all those same things to you, and more,” Harry says bitterly. And Charlie blinks. Takes a good, long look at Harry. Snarky, disheveled, grim Harry. . . .  
  
For the first time it occurs to him that all might not be well in Harry's happily ever after.  
  
Merlin, and if  _Harry_ 's happily ever after was broken . . . what chance did the rest of them have?  
  
“You won't deserve any of it,” Harry says finally, turning to walk away. But Charlie catches him by the arm. Tense, Harry pauses. “What?”  
  
“I—when will you know—I mean, sorting through his memories—how long will that take?”  
  
“What's it matter to you?”  
  
“It just—it matters!” Charlie exclaims, and a passing Medi-witch glares at him. He lowers his voice and says it again. “It matters.”  
  
Harry's mouth purses. “Before these test results, it would have depended on how fast we found anything of import.  _Now_  . . . there'll be aurors scouring his entire life. Birth till now. I'd say at least a few months, with people working 'round the clock. And still sort of depending on what we find.”  
  
_Months? Merlin. . . ._  
  
“What . . . what happens to him, now?” Charlie swallows again, thoughts of Azkaban dancing in his head . . . of death and Dementors and it makes his insides clench and go cold to think of any of that happening to the gentlest, warmest soul he's ever met. To think of any of that happening to  _Xander_. . . .  
  
“Most likely? He'll be kept in St. Mungo's Spell Damage ward. We've set up a rotating auror detail—a pair of aurors will be there at all times under strict orders to keep out the curious—“  
  
“Curious?” Charlie frowns. “Who else knows about this?”  
  
“As of now? No one. But that can and likely will change. We haven't exactly had time to be hush-hush about all this, now, have we? I've no doubt the whole hospital will be buzzing, soon.” Harry laughs a little ruefully. “At any rate, should you choose to visit . . . the aurors have been informed to let any Weasley or Potter through, since . . . well, we're the closest thing he has to a family.”  
  
“Oh.” Charlie looks down, shaking his head. “I don't know if I can see him. Not without seeing Tom Riddle.”  
  
“Till twelve hours ago, you didn't even know what Tom Riddle looked like,” Harry dismisses.  
  
“And I wish I still didn't,” Charlie says heartily, covering his face again, his fingers pricked by his own stubble. He can't help but remember how much Xander had liked his stubble—liked scritching through it, as if Charlie was a large cat. “Merlin, Harry, what do I  _do_?”  
  
“I already told you what  _I_  think.” Harry's hand settles on Charlie's arm again. “I think he's a decent bloke who got the short end of the stick through no fault of his own. And if ever there was a time to stand by your man, Charlie Weasley, this is it. And, for what it's worth . . . I'll stand by you both.”  
  
Then the hand is gone and so is Harry Potter.  
  
And Charlie is left alone with his tortured thoughts and increasing despair.  
  


*

  
  
Midnight finds Charlie making his way past the two aurors guarding Xander's room—private—in the Spell Damage ward. After, of course, turning his wand over to them.  
  
He doesn't know what he expected to see and feel, but what he does see and feel leaves him breathless and wrecked on the shore of his own indecision.  
  
It's Xander, laying in bed, much the same as he has over the past five days of his recuperation. Only this Xander doesn't look like he's going from worse to better. This Xander looks like he's going from better to worse. He's pasty-pale, with dark patches forming under his eyes—sleep-sick, and laying so still, so limply, that he looks as if he's dead, which for a moment causes Charlie's heart to seize in his chest.  
  
But it starts beating again when Xander takes a sudden deep breath and moans. He begins to turn his head slowly from side to side, as if negating something.  
  
Whatever he's dreaming, it's not good.  
  
_Somnus Profunde_  generally causes a sleep too deep for dreams, or so Charlie'd been taught. But here, as with everything else, lately, Xander confounds conventional wisdom.  
  
He almost smiles at the thought, and before his conscious mind is fully aware of it, he's approaching the bed and his lover, stopping only when he's leaning over Xander, drinking in the sight of him. Even clearly exhausted and sleep-sick to boot, he's still the most beautiful thing Charlie's ever laid eyes on.  
  
_I don't even care that this is Tom Riddle's body I'm waxing poetical about,_  Charlie thinks, then sighs.  _And that's what bothers me._  
  
He reaches out slowly and brushes Xander's hair out of his face, his fingers settling on the curve of Xander's cheek. His skin is cool and clammy to the touch. But his tossing immediately stops, as do the small, unhappy moans.  
  
With his free hand, Charlie drags the visitor's chair closer to the bed and sits. After a few awkward moments, he takes Xander's hand in his own and squeezes it. It remains limp and lax in his own, but Charlie continues holding it, nonetheless.  
  


*

  
  
“Mr. Weasley . . . have you been here all night?”  
  
Charlie starts awake, blinking in the early morning light. He lifts his heavy head up off Xander's bed and finds himself looking at a concerned Medi-witch Benza.  
  
“Er,” he says, looking around groggily. Xander's still asleep in the bed, his hand still clasped in Charlie's. He looks a little better than he had, last night. Less pale, though that could be the kind early morning light. “I suppose. What time is it?”  
  
Benza smiles her professional smile. “According to the Ministry, time for more testing. It turns out they want the full battery of tests, after all. And they want them post-haste.” She sighs and rubs at her eyes, which are a little reddened, then levels her wand at Xander. " _Mobili—_ "  
  
"Wait!" Charlie throws out a halting hand. “Aren't you going to wake him up, first?” he asks incredulously. Benza sighs.  
  
“The Ministy didn't specify that he be woken up. And these test don't require wakefulness of the subject. . . .”  
  
Charlie squeezes Xander's hand. “He's had enough done to him without his knowledge. Wake him, first. Please.”  
  
Benza bites her lip, then sighs again, drawing her wand. “Alright. If you'll let go of his hand for a moment—ah,  _Finite Incantatem_.”  
  
Xander's eyes open—strange, beautiful eyes that even now, Charlie can't get enough of staring into—and he takes a slightly deeper breath . . . and that's it.  
  
He doesn't move, doesn't look around, doesn't do anything but breathe and stare straight ahead.  
  
“Mr. Harris?” Benza says questioningly, glancing at Charlie, who's only got eyes for Xander. He's holding Xander's hand in both of his, now, but lets go to caress Xander's face.  
  
“Xander . . . it's Charlie,” he whispers roughly, and Xander's next exhalation is stuttered and shaky. “Do you know where you are?”  
  
A single tear rolls down Xander's cheek, onto Charlie's thumb.  
  
“St. Mungo's Hospital,” Xander breathes, blinking rapidly. More tears roll out and down his cheeks. Finally, slowly, his eyes tick to Charlie's. They're red and wet. “Why're you still here?”  
  
At this, Charlie sits back, surprised.  
  
But it's a good question. Why  _is_  he still there?  
  
It turns out, there's only one answer that makes any sense, after everything that's happened.  
  
“I'm here because I love you,” Charlie says, leaning forward again, not stopping until he's kissed Xander's tear-stained cheek, then his lips. Xander stares at him in confusion and wary hope.  
  
“But . . . I'm. . . .” Xander closes his eyes tight, turning his face toward the window before opening them again. “I'm Tom Riddle. Not his nephew, or great-grandson—I'm  _him_.”  
  
“No, you're not. You're  _not_ ,” Charlie emphasizes with a squeeze of Xander's hand. “You're Xander Harris.”  
  
“Who doesn't even exist, anymore.” Xander turns his face toward Charlie again, his eyes fierce and intent. “That's the part of my past I didn't want to tell you about. The part where I got my own existence erased, dicking around with black magic I didn't understand. There  _is_  no Xander Harris anymore. So I guess that just leaves good ol' Tommy Riddle to fill my size twelves.”   
  
Now, confused, himself, Charlie frowns. “What do you mean you got your existence  _erased_?”  
  
Xander turns away again, freeing his hand from Charlie's to wipe his face. “Nothing, just . . . nothing. You should . . . probably make tracks.”  
  
Charlie is, for a second, completely uncomprehending. Then he understands, and freezes. “What?”  
  
“I said  _leave_. Please. Leave me alone.”  
  
“Xander— _no_! What on Earth—“  
  
But Xander's looking at Benza, who's been standing off to the side, watching the scene inscrutably. “You're here to finish running tests on me, right? To make sure I really am who you think I am?”  
  
“Ministry's orders.” Benza nods. Xander struggles to a sitting position with a sigh, waving off Charlie's offer of help.  
  
“I mean it, Charlie. Go on. Get out before you get in any deeper.” Xander swings his legs over the other side of the bed, braces himself on his arms, and stands up, holding the back of the ridiculous hospital gown closed. Charlie watches him with eyes the sting at the backs.  
  
“I'm not going  _anywhere_ , Xander Harris,” he says sharply, his voice cracking. “I'm already in too deep. I'm in  _love_  with you!”  
  
Xander winces, but steps around the bed slowly, as if he's in pain. Charlie jumps up to assist him, but gets waved away again. This time, however, Charlie is not so easily dismissed. He pulls Xander into his arms.  
  
“Look at me, love,” he says when Xander won't meet his eyes. “Please,  _look_  at me?”  
  
Brows furrowing, Xander finally looks up into Charlie's eyes, his own wet. “Why are you making this so hard?” he whispers unevenly. “I'm trying to protect you, you stupid ass!”  
  
“No, you're just pushing me away. That's not protecting me, that's hurting me.” Charlie leans his forehead against Xander's. “Don't push me away, love.”  
  
“It's for your own good, Charlie! Do you think this is gonna get any easier? That people are gonna spare your feelings when they find out you're sleeping with Tom Riddle's—I dunno, clone? Twin? Whatever I am?” Xander shakes his head. “Can you imagine how people will treat you—treat your family—when they find out you and I are. . . connected?  
  
“Can you imagine how  _my Mum'll_  react if she finds out I abandoned you when you needed me the most?” Charlie asks, smiling a little. “She'd bloody  _murder_  me! In her eyes and every other Weasley's you're part of the family, already, and Weasleys stick together.”  
  
“Charlie—“  
  
“No, Xander, listen to me.” Charlie searches Xander's eyes and finds nothing there to dissuade him from laying all his cards on the table. “At first, I was . . . startled to find out you and Riddle . . . have so much in common, physically. And yes, I nearly made the worst mistake in my life, and walked away. But I was a fool—Harry Potter set me straight on that, right enough. Wherever your body comes from—and I  _love_  this body, by the way—your mind and your heart, your  _soul_ are all your own. They're unshaped and untainted by anything Tom Riddle did. You're your own man, and that man is good and kind, brave and sweet and I  _love_  him. I can't imagine living without him.”  
  
Xander closes his eyes and hangs his head, shivering when Charlie cups his face in one large hand and tilts it up to his own. “I'm sorry,” Charlie says softly. “Sorry that, even though it was only for a little while, I didn't stand by you. But I'm here, now, and I'll always be here. No matter how many times you push me away, no matter what anyone says—and that includes you.” He strokes Xander's cheek slowly with his thumb.  
  
“You don't know what you're saying. . . .”  
  
“I  _do_ ,” Charlie murmurs, leaning close to kiss Xander's forehead, and kiss away the tears that are starting to fall. “I know the wizarding world better than you do. And I 'm not saying it'll be easy, getting through life looking like Tom Riddle, but it'll be easi _er_  with someone by your side—no, a whole family in your corner.”  
  
“Charlie—“ Xander starts, but doesn't get to finish because Charlie's kissing him. At first, Xander doesn't respond—doesn't pucker his lips or open his mouth. Then he moans and surrenders completely to Charlie, letting himself be kissed and held tight. He tastes like a bad night's sleep and stress. Like tears. But under those tastes is the unique, familiar sweetness that's all  _Xander_. Charlie is content to do nothing else but seek out that sweetness for the rest of his life, no matter what package it comes in.  
  
But it just so happens that the package is pretty nice, too, no matter who it once belonged to.  
  
“I can't do this, Charlie, I can't, I'm sorry,” Xander breathes, suddenly pulling away. “I can't deal with being on the cusp of this great new life, only to have it all snatched away from me because of my fucking genetics.”  
  
“Nothing's going to be snatched away from you, Xander. I won't let it be.” Charlie squeezes Xander tight when Xander tries to pull out of his arms entirely. But Charlie refuses to release him, bringing nearly three decades worth of dragon-wrangling strength to bear on the situation.  
  
“Let go of me!” Xander exclaims, once he realizes he can't break free without Charlie letting him go. Charlie shakes his head and doesn't so much as break a sweat. “Damnit, Charlie!”  
  
“Could stay like this for hours, me.”  
  
“Well,  _I can't_.”  
  
Startled, they both look over at Medi-witch Benza. “May I suggest you reconcile—or not—after the tests are run? The Ministry's really being quite insistent,” she says briskly. “Harry Potter, himself is here to observe the tests.”  
  
Xander sags in Charlie's arms. “They're sending the savior of the wizarding world to keep me in line, Charlie. Does that sound like anyone you want to be involved with?” he asks ruefully, dejectedly.  
  
Charlie relaxes his hold into more of a hug, kissing the crown of Xander's head. “Sounds like someone I  _definitely_  want to be involved with. Always love a challenge, I do.”  
  
Xander rolls his eyes irritably, but the corners of his mouth twitch a little.  
  
It's a start.  
  


*

  
  
  
Charlie insists on following Xander and Benza to the exam.  
  
Benza, for her part, merely looks resigned, but Xander looks downright alarmed. “ _No_ , Charlie! Go home. Don't you have dragons to tame?” he demands.  
  
Charlie smiles wryly. “Filed for paid time off. I've got plenty of time.”  
  
Xander glances at him, half suspicious and half amused. “How much time?”  
  
“Well, let's just say I've never once used PTO in almost fifteen years as head keeper.” Charlie tries to take Xander's hand as they pass a different, seemingly  _in_ different pair of aurors guarding the doors. The one on the right wordlessly hands Charlie his wand back.  
  
Xander, meanwhile does some evasive maneuvering with his hand, finally crossing his arms so Charlie has no choice, obviously, but to put a guiding hand on the now-exposed small of Xander's back.  
  
His hand, of course, slips a bit lower, what with all the walking. . . .  
  
“You're incredible, you know that?” Xander says flatly, pride clearly refusing to let him fool about with the gaping back of the hospital gown or Charlie's adventurous hand. Charlie chuckles, openly admiring the view.  
  
“This isn't the first time you've said so,” he leans close to whisper. “And it won't be the last.”  
  
Xander shivers, glaring ahead at Benza's ramrod-straight back.  
  
“Don't count on that,” he finally warns, but by then they've reached the exam room—a different one from yesterday, smaller, almost cosy in comparison—and Benza's shaking hands with a waiting Harry Potter.  
  
“ . . . simply an honor, Mr. Potter,” she's saying, in the closest to a gush Charlie suspects she'll ever get. Harry, in the meantime and as always, looks uncomfortable.  
  
“Er . . . nice to meet you, too . . . despite the circumstances,” he mutters, taking her hand briefly then letting go. Benza nods solemnly, glancing at Xander.  
  
“Yes, the circumstances  _are_  unfortunate.” She shakes her head. “But hopefully these tests will reveal some helpful bit of information for our beloved Ministry, yes?”  
  
“Yes, of course,” Harry still seems uncomfortable. He clears his throat and steps forward to shake Charlie's hand, his eyes warming with approval.  
  
“Charlie. Xander.” He takes Xander's hand—Xander looks shocked—and shakes it, too. “We ready to get this mess over with?”  
  
“God, yes,” Xander exhales heavily, not resisting—likely not noticing when Charlie moves closer into his personal bubble. “How long should the tests take? And what happens to me afterwards?”  
  
“The tests should take no longer than half an hour to perform, altogether,” Benza says. “Some of the results will need a bit of . . . going over, and  _that_  may take several hours. As to what happens to you after testing, I shall defer to Mr. Potter.”  
  
Harry nods once, briskly. “Right, then. The Ministry has arranged for you to stay at St. Mungo's for the duration of the memory scan, which is looking like several months—“  
  
“ _Several months_?”  
  
Harry shrugs. “It may be longer, depending on what we find. But during that time, it'll be safest for you here. Specifically in this ward, where it's quiet, infrequently visited, and where no one will expect you to be.”  
  
Xander frowns. “No one like— _who_?” he asks slowly. “No one else knows about any of this, right? Right?”  
  
Harry suddenly looks grim. “Not exactly.” He digs around in his robes for a few moments and comes out with a . . . newspaper. He hands the paper to Xander, who glances at Charlie before unfolding it.  
  
“The  _Daily Prophet_?” he murmurs—then gasps as he gets a good look at the moving sepia-toned photo on the cover. The subject of the photo is pale, handsome, with hooded dark eyes, and a secretive smile for the person wielding the camera. He's dressed in fancy, but old-fashioned robes, with a suit underneath. His thick, dark, longish hair is loose around his shoulders and in his left hand is a wand that bears a striking resemblance to Harry Potter's old wand.  
  
In the photo, suddenly the young wizard winks and waves, and that secretive smile becomes almost . . . open. This more open, happier smile sits strangely on his brooding, saturnine countenance.  
  
“Hey—that's  _me_!” Xander says, sounding startled and more than a bit puzzled.  
  
Charlie, who's got his arm around Xander's shoulders, now, shakes his head and points at the headline. “No, love . . . it's not,” he says quietly. But Xander's mouth has dropped open and he's obviously struggling for words.  
  
**_Riddle Returns?_**  
  
And underneath that marquee headline:  
  
_Ministry Finds Tom Riddle Doppleganger!_  
  
“Son of a  _bitch_!” Xander blurts out, scanning the article, which is accompanied by a small head-and-shoulders illustration of what is undeniably  _Xander_ —as Charlie doubts Tom Riddle ever wore that particular look of hapless hope and optimism . . . or that particular hospital gown—his longish hair a mess that's hastily brushed back out of his face repeatedly as the illustration replays and replays itself.  
  
“My thoughts, exactly,” Harry says, plucking the paper from Xander'shands and showing it to Benza. “That's a St. Mungo's hospital gown, is it not?”  
  
“It is,” Benza says, her eyes narrowing intently. “In fact, it's the one Mr. Harris is wearing, and has  _been_  wearing since the paternity test, yesterday afternoon. . . .”  
  
Harry nods as if having his doubts confirmed. Or his hopes dashed. “That's what I thought. Which means we've got a snitch,” he sighs. “And it also means that St. Mungo's is no longer secret and safe.”  
  
“Fuck.  _Fuck_!” Xander runs a hand through his hair, then snatches the paper back from Harry. He can't seem to take his eyes off the photo of Riddle that dominates the front page. “I mean, where'd they even get this photo? I thought no one knew what he looked like or had any photos of him, anymore.”  
  
Harry winces. “We, the Ministry, have apparently overlooked the fact that newspapers such as the  _Prophet_  have photo libraries that are at least as old as the Ministry's. This photo is likely from some old back-page article or other.” He sniffs.  
  
“This, uh . . .doesn't look like the sort of photo any professional newspaper would normally run with a serious article. Well, for one thing, he's flirting with the photographer,” Xander adds off of Harry's questioning look. He turns the paper so Harry can see the photo again. “I mean, he _sorta_  looks distinguished, but he then he's winking and waving and . . . I'm thinking that Riddle would  _not_  let anyone run  _this_  photo of him in a newspaper. I'm thinking no one would have even dared, while he was still alive.”  
  
Charlie and Harry share a look. Charlie shrugs. “He's got a good point. Maybe if you find out where that photo came from, you'll find whoever leaked the story to the  _Prophet_.”  
  
“Maybe,” Harry says thoughtfully, eyeing Xander with new respect. “Maybe.”  
  
“But before any of that, the  _tests_ , gentlemen, and then you can be on your way,” Benza says, gesturing them into the small exam room. “Well, Mr. Potter can, at least.”  
  
Harry snorts. “When I leave, Medi-witch Benza, I'll likely be taking Xander, here, with me. It's clear there's a snitch on your staff.”  
  
Benza looks offended, but before she can say anything, Xander nods his agreement. “You  _did_ have, like, a thousand Medi-witchlings 'observing' me last night. Any one of them could have leaked the story.”  
  
Frowning, Benza shuts the door to the exam room. “That's highly improbable. We never mentioned who the other DNA sample came from!”  
  
“But is it possible any of them might have recognized who Xander resembles?” Harry asks, then shakes his head. “Of  _course_  it's  _possible_. There are still photos and illustrations of Tom Riddle around, obviously, if one knows where to look. Any one of them could have seen Riddle's face and remembered it. He's infamous, after all. And handsome enough to be memorable.” Harry glances at Xander and smiles wryly.  
  
Xander blushes, and ducks his head. “Yeah, if you like the broody type.”  
  
“I prefer the sweet and sunny type, myself,” Charlie says, wrapping his arms around Xander's waist, feeling a sudden need to stake his claim. He kisses Xander's cheek and Xander doesn't fight him on it. Charlie takes that as a good sign.  
  
Benza directs Xander to sit on the exam table, which he does after Charlie hesitantly lets him go.  
  
“The first test I'll be doing is the mystical paternity test, which should tell us if Mr. Harris's magical signature matches Tom Riddle's—“  
  
“I'm betting it will,” Xander mutters glumly, swinging his legs a little.  
  
“Yes, well, let's not jump to conclusions,” Benza says gently—an attempt at giving comfort that falls rather flat. Then she levels her wand at Xander, swishes, and flicks.  
  
“ _Revelare Mysticum Paternitas._ ”  
  
For a few moments, the air around Xander is a-swarm with tiny yellow lights, which settle briefly on Xander's face, his hair, his arms—everywhere, but never stay. Finally, they dissipate, with an almost disappointed air.  
  
“Hmm. That's odd.” Benza's brow furrows, and Xander, Harry, and Charlie all snort.  
  
“Define  _odd_?” Xander says. Benza shakes her head.  
  
“It means there  _is_  no mystical paternity—though I suppose that's not  _so_  strange coming, as Mr. Riddle did, from a Muggle father—assuming, of course, that you and Mr. Riddle are, indeed, connected mystically.”  
  
“I think that's a safe assumption to make,” Xander snorts again. “So, his magic came fom his mother, I'm guessing. That's right, isn't it? So what about a mystical  _maternity_  test?  _Is_  there such a thing?”  
  
Benza smiles mildly. “But of course there is.  _Revelare Mysticum_ Maternitas!”  
  
This time, the tiny lights don't so much swarm around Xander, as engulf him.  
  
“Hey!” He waves at them, as if trying to shoo them, but they stick to him like glue for long moments, until he finally gives up trying to swipe them off and wave them away. And just about the time he gives up trying, they break away from him and form into an excited sphere in front of his face.  
  
“Uh,” Xander says, inching back on the exam table. Even Harry's pulled out his wand. Charlie, however, steps closer to the whirling sphere of lights.  
  
Suddenly, the sphere begins to reconfigure itself, drifting toward the blank, beige wall to Xander's left. It stops within inches of the wall before hurling itself forward, to splash like a wave across the pale surface, where it spreads out like a liquid.  
  
Some of the lights gain color—mostly browns, charcoals, and reds, and continue to reorganize themselves into a picture.  
  
“It's some sort of mosaic,” Xander breathes, obviously fascinated. Benza tilts her head consideringly.  
  
“Actually, when it settles itself, it will be a full magical family tree, tracing your maternal line back to, well the earliest wizard in, er, your family.”  
  
“ _Cool_ ,” Xander says, smiling, and Charlie's hear does a flip. It's the first he's seen of that smile in what feels like forever.  
  
And so they watch as the lights arrange themselves—some lights nudging other lights out of the way officiously, like a crowd of busy people—until there's, indeed, a full family tree on the wall. And it's clearly not the one Xander's expecting to see, because now, that smile is gone as if it never was.  
  
At the top of that rather narrow family tree, is an extremely familiar grey-haired, pale-eyed, olive-skinned man, with an equally familiar secretive smile. Charlie knows this face, because he'd at one point in his life, seen it every day, whether in classrooms, hallways, or history books.  
  
“Salazar Slytherin,” Harry breathes, and Xander looks over at him, blankly. Then at Charlie, when no explanation is forthcoming.  
  
“One of the four founders of Harry's and my alma mater: Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. And one of the greatest wizards who ever lived.” Charlie looks back at the wall, scanning face after face, name after name, date after date, until he comes to the final one:  
  
“'Merope Gaunt,'” he reads, looking to Harry, who nods.  
  
“That's her. That's Riddle's Mum.”  
  
Now Xander's staring back at the wall, once more. At the sad-faced, plain woman who's the last in a long line of sad-faced, plain witches and wizards. They all have the same lank, medium brown hair and pale grey eyes. Some have the same secretive smile of their forefather, but most merely look unhappy, or just uncertain. But one thing's for sure: Xander looks nothing like any of them.  
  
“I take it I look like the Riddle side of the family, then,” Xander says, not without a little relief, and closely echoing Charlie's thougts. Harry cracks a smile.  
  
“Tom Riddle, Sr. was a very attractive man. Riddle, Jr. looked almost exactly like him, except for that smile, of course.” Harry gestures at the top of the family tree. “He had that Salazar Slytherin-smirk.”  
  
“Do . . . do  _I_  have that Salazar Slytherin-smirk?” Xander asks almost diffidently, and before Charlie can answer, Harry's already done so.  
  
“No,” he replies, smiling himself. “You don't.”  
  
Xander's own smile shines out at Harry, and Charlie feels unaccountably jealous.  
  
“Well, I guess thank goodness for small favors.” Xander turns back to the wall, squinting and mouthing the names of some of Riddle's—of  _his_  ancestors. “Jesus . . . how on Earth did I end up in California if I'm, well, apparently English?”  
  
Harry leans against the counter, with an eye for a few potions that are resting there. “Well, that's what we're hoping your earlier memories can tell us. Whether or not you consciously remember being born or the first few months of your life, those memories are still  _in there_. Even though you wouldn't have understood what was going on around you, those impressions are still there. And now, they're in several pensieves being gone over,” Harry adds solemnly. “Don't worry. We'll sort this out. Sooner, hopefully, rather than later.”  
  
“In the meantime,” Charlie states, and Xander and Harry look at him as if they'd forgotten he was there. “Where's Xander going to stay? He can't stay here—and I doubt the Ministry will let him come back to Romania with me. So where are we going to keep him?”  
  
“Well, I've actually got an idea, regarding that.” Harry grins and crosses his arms. “The last place _anyone_  will look. Mostly because they can't find the bloody place.”  
  
Charlie blinks blankly and Harry rolls his eyes.  
  
“Think gothic, ancient, dreary . . . Unplottable.” As a lumos comes on in Charlie's mind and shines out of his eyes, Harry nods, his grin getting wider and somehow less reassuring. “Think Kreacher . . . think Fidelius charm . . . or, if nothing else, think  _Phoenix_.”  
  
“Phoenix?” Xander asks, as Benza ends the maternity spell and the family tree disappears with a flash.  
  
Charlie shakes his head. “No.  _No_! That place is a nightmare! I wouldn't stash a crup I didn't like in that madhouse—with that scatty old elf for company, no less!”  
  
“Nonetheless, that's where Xander's staying until further notice,” Harry states. “Period, full-stop.”  
  
“Who's the lead auror on Xander's case? I want a word with him or her!” Charlie says angrily. Harry's grin turns into a laconic, yet smug smile.  
  
“Actually, the Ministry has put  _me_  in charge of Xander's case as of this morning. And hiding him out in my dreary, old Unplottable Pile isn't a subject that's up for debate,” Harry says stonily.  
  
He and Charlie glare at each other until Xander sighs loudly.  
  
“Can we just get my tests done, and then you guys can go back to measuring who's got the longer . . .  _wand_? Jesus!”  
  
“Ah, but 'it's not the length of the wand, it's the flick in the stick,'” Harry borrows from George's large store of mostly inappropriate quotes. Charlie huffs, his mouth quirking a little, and he relaxes just a bit.  
  
“Fine. The Unplottable Pile, it is. But I go with him.” Before Xander or Harry can protest, Charlie holds up his hands. “That place is hazardous even to a trained wizard, let alone an untrained one. And  _you_  bloody well can't be there all the time holding his hand. Xander's going to need someone to look after him.”  
  
“Hey! Sitting right here!” This from Xander. But Charlie ignores it.  
  
“I go where Xander goes,” he says firmly, and Harry's stony facade cracks just a little, to let out an amused smirk.  
  
“I'd never imagined otherwise.” Harry gestures to Medi-witch Benza. “For now, he's all yours.”  
  
“At  _last_ ,” Benza mutters, pointing her wand at Xander like she means business. He squares his shoulders manfully, and says: “Hit me, Doc.”  
  
“ _Mensuram Magicales Fortitudo_!”


	11. Number 12, Grimmauld Place

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With St. Mungo's no longer being secret and safe, Harry moves Xander to somewhere a little bit more . . . Unplottable.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: If I owned either franchise, they would have ended very differently. Anya and Snape would still be alive, for one thing.

“. . . and I'll come see you again as soon as I can, mate,” Charlie says to Gavin's unconscious form.  
  
Gavin doesn't move. Doesn't so much as take a deeper breath. He's in a healing coma that will likely last for three times as long as Xander's had.  
  
Xander watches silently as Charlie very gently squeezes Gavin's unbandaged hand and kisses his forehead.  
  
Then Charlie's standing up and turning to Xander, a small smile. “Well . . . I'm ready, if you are.”  
  
Xander sighs in exasperation. “Charlie, this's ridiculous—you have a life in Romania. You can't put it all on hold because of me.”  
  
“My  _life_  is with  _you_. Being wherever you are.” Charlie's smile widens. “Even if it's that old, Unplottable Pile of Harry's.”  
  
“What's an 'Unplottable Pile'? It sounds like a bathroom code for a dog.” Xander makes a face and Charlie laughs.  
  
“An Unplottable place is place that, well, for all intents and purposes, can't be found, except by the people who know exactly where it is. So the odds of any reporter finding it are nil. And the particular old pile of stones Harry's taking us to used to belong to a member of his . . . extended family. So only Harry, and a few wizards and witches who were unquestionably loyal to him, know where it is.” Charlie bites his lip. “It's a strange old place. Dangerous, in parts. Merely hazardous, in others. Just plain unpleasant, over all—“  
  
“You're filling me with buckets of confidence, here.” Xander rolls his eyes and tries not to feel that horrible, free-falling sensaation that's been with him since yesterday afternoon. Tries not to want Charlie to hold him and make that feeling go away.  
  
It's really better for all concerned, no mater how free-fall-y Xander feels or how creepy this . . . Unplottable place is, if Charlie goes back to where he belongs.  
  
“Well, there'll be naught to worry about, since I'll be there with you,” Charlie says, as if making a mockery of Xander's thoughts. “I've done my fair share of rattling about that old place during the War.”  
  
Sighing, Xander crosses his arms over his chest and meets Charlie's gaze. “Charlie . . . you're being ridiculous, you know,” he finally says afer searching his boyfiend's-- _gotta stop thinking of him that way_ —eyes for long moments.  
  
Charlie's red eyebrows drift upward. “Oh? And how's that?”  
  
Xander looks away. At poor Gavin, laying in the bed. “By pretending that nothing's changed between us. That this—what we had—can still work.”  
  
“But that's just it, love, it  _can_  still work. It  _is still_  working,” Charlie corrects, putting his hands on Xander's shoulder, then sliding them up to cup Xander's face tenderly. Xander doesn't have the fortitude to pull away from that gentle touch, and instead keeps his eyes on Gavin. “You're scared and confused and in shock. I understand that. You need some space. I understand that, too. I can give you space, within reason, considering we're about to be sequestered in a house that sanity forgot. But one thing I will  _not_  do is let you go.”  
  
“Charlie.” Xander shakes his head and pinches the bridge of his nose. “What if you letting go is what I want?”  
  
Out of the corner of his eyes, Xander can see Charlie honestly thinking that over. Then Charlie sighs.  
  
“If that day ever comes, when you genuinely want me to, I'll let you go. But until it does . . . I'm holding on to you for keeps.” Charlie steps close and kisses the corner of Xander's mouth. “Now, enough chit-chat. Harry's probably pacing a hole in the reception area floor.”  
  
And with that, he takes Xander's hand and tugs him out of the room. Xander goes, sighing, with one last look for Gavin.  
  
He doesn't suppose he'll ever see the dragon-tamer again, and the thought makes him sad, even though he knows that this, too, is for the best.  
  


*

  
  
With a crack like thunder, Xander finds himself bent over and dry-heaving in an alley, somewhere in London.  
  
On either side of him, like bodyguards, are Charlie and Harry Potter.  
  
“How come it didn't do this when we went from your livingroom to your bedroom?” Xander asks between heaving and coughing. Charlie pats his back soothingly.  
  
“We weren't going any real distance. The further you go, the harder it hits you . . . but you get used to it. In time.”  
  
“Speaking of time,” Harry looks at his watch and frowns. “I've got to be back at the Ministry in an hour to check in. And to see what's going on with those memories of yours. Think you're alright to walk?” he asks Xander, who straigtens up and takes big gulps of air to help control his nausea.  
  
“Yeah . . . sure . . . I'm a walkin' fool,” he replies breathlessly, pinching his nose shut and starting toward the mouth of the alley. His stomach is still roiling like it wants to toss up some bile, just for shits and giggles. Xander rubs it placatingly.  
  
Charlie and Harry follow him out of the alley, Harry guiding him left with a light touch to the arm when they step onto the street. There are few enough passersby, even at this time of day, but they ostentatiously ignore the young man walking with his nose pinched shut, being flanked by a brawny, rumpled redhead and a short, wiry brunet with the crooked glasses, askew tie, and wild hair of a slightly cracked accountant, who nonetheless looks to be the more dangerous of the two.  
  


*

  
  
If Xander, still recovering from his epic nausea, hadn't seen it, he would never have believed it.  
  
“The—did you guys see that? Those two houses jumped aside and another house appeared where they were standing! Like some kinda weird house-leapfrog!” he exclaims, pointing and looking from one wizard to another. “I mean, did you  _see_?”  
  
Harry smirks, and saunters up the walk to the ominous-looking front door and Charlie slinks an arm around Xander and draws him after. “We saw, love. That's what has to happen when one has an Unplottable house in the middle of London.”  
  
“That's—amazing!” Xander says, truly awed and humbled by such a feat of magic. He wonders if Willow could pull off something like this on her own, or if she'd need the coven. . . .  
  
Then he's at the front steps and door, both of which look worn and ill-cared for. And the door . . . doesn't have a knob or a bell or even a keyhole, just an ancient, heavy-looking silver knocker in the shape of a twisted up snake.  
  
“How're we supposed to get in?” Xander whispers to Charlie as Harry reaches for the knocker. “Is there someone already in there?”  
  
“My house elf, Kreacher, is there,” Harry says, raising the knocker and lowering it once, hard. It makes a sound like doom. Xander shudders. “I'd had him installed at Hogwarts, for a while, but he, er . . . creeped out too many of the other house elves.”  
  
“Charming,” Xander mutters. “I feel safer already.”  
  
Just then, the door swings open slowly, heavily, and a small creature, reminiscent of Charlie's elf, Ying-Ding—but very much not, in cerain ways, especially that rheumy, slightly malevolent stare and that sullen expression—is staring up at them.  
  
“Master,” it says in a low, creaking voice that sets Xander shuddering again. The old elf's eyes fall on Xander and widen, then narrow. But all it says is: “Master has brought guests. Right this way.”  
  
Having learned his lesson with Ying-Ding, Xander does not offer to shake hands with  _this_  elf. He doesn't want to even imagine  _this_  elf honking and snorting and weeping all over him.  
  
So, with some prodding from Charlie, he follows this elf into the house, jumping and yelping when the door swings shut behind them, like in some horror movie.  
  
 _Oh, this is just perfect. Absolutely perfect,_  he thinks, taking a tentative look around.   
  
The front hall he finds himself in is dark, unwelcoming, somehow despairing, with its ancient, threadbare carpet and darkened entryways. At least until Harry takes out his wand and says: “ _Illuminatus!_ ”  
  
Then, what seems like every light in the house comes on—every candelabra, every chandelier, every lamp—and lights the old place up like the fourth of July.  
  
Which doesn't really disspell the sense of darkness or despair that seems to lurk in every shadowed corner and crevice, however.  
  
The ancient house elf, Kreacher, sniffs disapprovingly before disappearing with an audible  _pop_.  
  
“Boy . . . I thought the house  _I_  grew up in was depressing,” Xander says quietly, as anything louder than a whisper feels somehow . . . wrong. Harry glances back at them, smiling a little.  
  
“I didn't grow up here, Xander, though I did spend some . . . shall we say  _memorable_  times here during my childhood. C'mon. Let me show you around a little—firstly to your room—before I have to dash.”  
  
And Xander's following Harry up the enormous front staircase when he realizes that not only hasn't he contested that singular  _room_ , but he's holding hands with Charlie and has been since . . . who knows when?  
  
“Uh . . . would it be possible for Charlie and I to have separate rooms?” Xander ventures, trying to free his hand. It's no doing.  
  
“Er . . . certainly . . . if that's what you want,” Harry says, glancing back at them again, questions in his eyes. Xander can feel Charlie looking at him intently, willing him to look back. But Xander doesn't. Instead, he straightens his shoulders and keeps his eyes on Harry.  
  
“I think that would be best.”  
  
“Alright, then. I suppose I can give you Ron's and Hermione's old rooms. Before I go, I'll let Kreacher know to get them ready for you. Though everything's probably neat as a pin—Kreacher's very good about that. Probably just need to let the rooms air a bit. . . .” Harry goes on as they reach the first landing.  
  
All the while, Xander can feel Charlie's gaze on him, cool and assessing.  
  


*

  
  
Xander flops on the pristine bed in his less than pristine clothes, and listens to Harry's and Charlie's voices float on down the hall.  
  
The room he's in is a bit choked with old, baroque furniture—though something seems to be missing, something Xander can't put his finger on—but neat, nonetheless. No dust or spiderwebs or anything like that. Though it  _is_  a bit musty-smelling from disuse. But it's well-lit . . . that way, at least Xander will  _see_  the murderous ghouls as they kill him.  
  
He sighs and closes his eyes, surprised to find them as heavy as they are. He means only to rest them for a few minutes, maybe till they stop feeling as if they're made of stinging insects and barbed-wire, but the next thing he knows there's a knock on the lintel and he's starting awake. “Wha—“  
  
It's Charlie, leaning on the door, smiling fondly. Even half-asleep, that smile does funny things to Xander's stomach and heart.  
  
“Uh . . . hey . . . where's Harry?” Xander yawns, covering his mouth belatedly. Charlie crosses his arms.  
  
“Harry just left. With orders for me not to go roaming around anyplace I haven't already been before until he can get back and give us the full tour.” Charlie huffs, seeming slightly offended. Xander smiles.  
  
“Makes sense,” he says, nodding, then looking around the room. He suddenly places the one thing missing from the cluttered room. The one thing that might matter the most, for his sanity. “I don't suppose there're any ginormous flatscreen televisions in this place?”  
  
“Not a one, I'm afraid. No WWN, either.”  
  
Thinking  _WWF,_  only English, Xander shrugs. “That's fine. I'm not a big wrestling fan, anyway.”  
  
At this Charlie looks completely blank. Xander flops back on the bed again with a drawn-out groan. “How the hell are we supposed to not die of boredom in this place? Isn't there anything to  _do_?”  
  
Charlie quirks up an eyebrow, his gaze running hot and lingering over Xander's body. Xander blushes, pulling down his shirt where it's ridden up to expose his stomach. “I meant besides _that_.”  
  
Charlie chuckles, though he seems a bit disappointed. “In that case, I can show you where the library is . . . it's got loads of old books on magical theory and the like. Although . . . I'm told there are a few novels and books of poetry and history, if one has the persistence to look,” Charlie adds when Xander makes a desperately pouty face. “And believe me, persistance is what's called for, since there's no rhyme or reason to the way the books are shelved. If you don't know what you're looking for to call it to hand, finding things can be a bit time-consuming.”  
  
“Time-consuming!” Xander jumps up so fast he very nearly falls over. “That sounds like it's right up my alley! Let's go!”  
  
Charlie nods toward the right, down the hall, and starts walking. Xander follows close enough behind that he can smell Charlie's scent and . . . he starts lagging. Far enough that Charlie glances behind him.  
  
“Best keep up. Don't want to get lost in here,” he calls back. “At least not until you've got a wand and a defensive spell or two under your belt.”  
  
“You're kidding, right?” Xander laughs nervously. Charlie keeps walking and doesn't answer. “Charlie?  _Charlie_!”  
  
Xander hurries to catch up.  
  


*

  
  
“ _Hogwarts: A History_ ,” Xander reads on the spine of a newer-looking book amongst the hundreds that fill the Black library. He slides it off the shelf to flip through, the first book interesting—or decipherable—enough to actually consider reading after fifteen minutes of perusing.  
  
“Oh, yes. Good reading, that. And it's a newer edition, too, with the foreword by Headmistress MacGonagall,” Charlie says, fom right at Xander's side, startling him into dropping the book. But Charlie catches it before it hits the floor. “Must've been a gift from Hermione. Though why Harry keeps it here. . . .”  
  
“Maybe it's an effort to cozy this place up,” Xander says, snorting. “I'm thinking a few tchatchkies, some knick-knacks, a personal touch or two, and this place'll be ready for  _Better Homes and Gardens_.”  
  
He reaches out to take the book from Charlie, but Charlie holds it out of reach for a moment, before placing it back on the shelf.  
  
Xander rolls his eyes. “Ha-ha.” He goes for the book again, both surprised and not when Charlie takes advantage of his shift in position to duck under his arm so that he's between Xander and the shelves, eyes as serious as anything.  
  
“Charlie, get outta the way,” Xander says, not holding out much hope. Charlie shakes his head _no_.  
  
“Not until you tell me why we're sleeping apart.”  
  
Xander blushes, aiming his glare at the books to the left side of Charlie's head. “Because, the sooner we acknowledge that things have changed, the better.”  
  
Charlie wraps an arm around Xander's waist and pulls him close, so their bodies are flush against each other. Charlie's half hard and not shy about that fact. Another non-surprise is that Xander starts responding, well-trained as he has been to get hard whenever Charlie's within a thousand miles of him.  
  
“Charlie. . . .” Xander breathes, trying to shift his body so that his growing arousal is less obvious.  
  
“I don't think things have changed between us as much as  _you_  seem to think.” Charlie's hand slides down from Xander's waist, to his ass, where it squeezes possessively. “I think that's what scares you.”  
  
“I'm not scared,” Xander lies, and Charlie tilts his head disbelievingly.  
  
“You'd be a fool not to be.  _I'm_  scared.”  
  
Xander's smile is rueful and twisting. “That I'll turn into Tom Riddle: The Sequel?”  
  
“No . . . scared that I'll lose you to this silly idea that just because you don't come from where you've always thought you came from, we have to be apart.” Charlie's other hand comes up to Xander's face, fingers brushing Xander's lips for a few seconds. “I love you—I don't care who had this body before you did. As far as I'm concerned, it and the soul animating it are  _mine_ , now.”  
  
Shivering, Xander does his best to ignore the heat pooling from just about everywhere in his body, to his groin. “I'm not yours, Charlie. Not anymore. Hell, I'm not even  _mine_.”  
  
“Yes, you are.” Charlie smiles. “You just need time to realize that. And, in the meantime, I don't see why we should be sleeping in separate beds. We still need each other. Still  _want_  each other.” Charlie laughs a little, breathily. “Merlin, how I want you. . . .”  
  
“Yeah, well, lots of people want stuff they can't have,” Xander says regretfully, turning his face away as Charlie leans in for a kiss. This doesn't faze Charlie, who simply kisses Xander on the cheek. “Don't you get how incredibly hard this is for me? To want you so much, and not be able to have you? What you're doing right now is only making it  _worse_  for me.”  
  
“Good.” Charlie replies firmly, his breath warm and moist in Xander's ear. Xander's mouth drops open in shock. “I'm not here to help you refuse me and push me away, Xander. I'm not here to play fair when it comes to your heart. I will fight as dirty as I have to to keep you, make no mistake about that.”  
  
Xander's mouth works as he fights not to say some choice words—most of which have to do with Charlie's parentage—and he finally starts trying to pull away. Of course, Charlie won't let him. His arm is wrapped around Xander's waist again, and his other hand is clenched on Xander's biceps.  
  
“Let go of me, Charlie.”  
  
“No.” Charlie nips Xander's ear lobe, and Xander gasps, his body pressing more closely to Charlie's. The increased contact is dizzying, but Xander rallies, putting his hands on Charlie's chest, intending to push away from him. But once his hands land there, they simply map out familiar territory.  
  
“I  _said_ —“  
  
“And  _I_  said,” Charlie begins, both hands squeezing tight enough to bruise. Which shouldn't turn Xander on, but does, nonetheless. “I said  _no_. You won't get out of this . . . discussion so easily.”  
  
“'Discussion'?” Xander huffs, half-dazed and unthinking. He forces himself to push against Charlie's chest, even as Charlie kisses down the side of his neck—pausing to suck a hickey halfway to Xander's collarbone. “Is that what this is? It feels more like burgeoning date-rape, to me.”  
  
Charlie's head whips back from Xander, his eyes narrowed in disbelief and hurt. Xander immediately wishes he could take back what he just said. But he can't—he knows he can't—so he just brazens it out. Looks Charlie in the eye until Charlie looks away, shaking his head bitterly.  
  
“Date-rape,” he says quietly, shoving Xander away from him. He straightens up, his face a set mask of barely-concealed anger and upset. “Far be it from me to force my way where I'm not welcome. I'm going to go have a lie-in. Enjoy your book.”  
  
Then he's shouldering past Xander in a veritable cloud of bruised feelings, stalking out of the library. Leaving Xander standing there, too regretful to do anything but lean against the bookshelf and wonder why what'd seemed like a good idea when he first woke up at St. Mungo's this morning—pushing Charlie away for his own good—now seems like insane troll-logic.  
  


*

  
  
Sitting tailor-style on the floor under where Charlie had shelved  _Hogwarts: A History_ —said book open in his lap, and turned to page one—Xander's leaned back against the bookshelf, and has been for hours.  
  
He's been vacillating on whether to dare going after Charlie—he's prety sure he remembers the way back to where their rooms are—or just sitting where he is until Harry comes back. Whenever that is.  
  
Sometimes he dozes off, only to awaken suddenly, with tears on his face.  
  
This goes on for the rest of the morning and most of the afternoon. The overcast light outside the window tall, narrow windows has definitely dimmed, and taken a turn for the west.  
  
Xander's stomach growls, reminding him that it hasn't eaten since . . . lunch, yesterday. But he doesn't feel particularly feel hungry. All he wants right now is the one thing he can't have.  
  
Well. The one thing he won't  _let_  himself have.  
  
But it  _is_  all for the best, isn't it? Better that only Xander's life be ruined by this Tom Riddle business than Charlie's, too. And one day, Charlie will understand that. Maybe even thank Xander for being so proactive and thinking long-term.  
  
Because, really, what kind of life could they have together? The dragon-tamer and the man who was sort-of Tom Riddle? What kind of life could they have when Xander was doomed to spend his days in hiding because of the face he wore and the magic he carried?  
  
No, Xander wouldn't wish that on anyone, least of all Charlie. It was a good, noble, altruistic thing he was doing. . . .  
  
But then . . . why did it feel so  _bad_? Like ripping his own heart out and crushing it in his palm?  
  
Sniffing, Xander opens tired eyes he hadn't even been aware of closing, only to find a pair of denim-blue ones staring directly into his own from a distance of mere inches away. He yelps, and starts backwards, hitting the bookshelf hard enough to send a few books to the floor.  
  
“The resemblance,” says a soft whisper of a voice that seems to come from everywhere and nowhere all at once. “Really is  _quite_  uncanny.”  
  
Xander blinks and opens his mouth to say—he doesn't even know what, when the eyes drift back a bit. Far enough away for him to see that they belong to a young man who is sitting across from him, tailor-style, as well. He's pale and dark-haired—long and solidly built, at least from what Xander can tell—handsome in a way Giles might describe as  _Byronic_  . . . and, most importantly . . . he's kind of . . . transparent.  
  
“G-Ghost?” Xander asks numbly. The young man nods solemnly.  
  
“Indeed. For some years, now.” The ghost bows from the waist, but there are hints of a wry sort of smile curving his bloodless lips. “I heard that Weasley chap and the Potter boy call you 'Xander' . . . would that be your name, then?”  
  
Still utterly numb, Xander nods  _yes_.  
  
“Short for  _Alex_ ander, is it not? A fine name, even in its corrupted form.” The ghost seems to genuinely approve. It regards Xander with those denim-dark eyes then that wry almost-smile turns into a real one. The ghost sketches that neat little bow again. “Regulus Black, at your service, Xander.”  
  


*

  
  
Charlie wakes up suddenly around sunset, from a bad dream he can't remember.  
  
His head and his eyes ache and he's chilly, and for the first few moments he's awake, he wonders where Xander is . . . where  _he_  is.  
  
Then it all comes rushing back, from Xander waking up after the Ironbelly incident, to St. Mungo's—Merlin, St. Mungo's—to where he is now. Number 12, Grimmauld Place.  
  
And Xander. . . .  
  
“Merlin, I left him in the library—“ Charlie mutters, rubbing a hand over his face as he sits up achily. As far as he can remember, there's nothing particularly dangerous about the library—as long as one doesn't try some of the spells in the darker books of magic, that is—but that's assuming Xander, curious, someitmes fickle-of-attention-span  _Xander_ , hasn't wandered off to other pars of the house.  
  
That's, in fact, assuming other parts of the house didn't wander off to  _Xander_.  
  
“Damnit,” Charlie feels under his pillow for his wand—stashed there when he was done _Scourgify_ ing himself after a marathon wank session. Marathon only because he was too angry and upset to come for the first half-hour of trying . . . and when he finally did, it was less than satisfying—Charlie gets up, ignoring the ache of sleeping on a rock hard mattress ( _Ron really_ could _sleep anywhere_ , he reckoned) that he'd been too distracted to think to transfigure. He staggers to the door and flings it open, and nearly has a heart attack when he finds Kreacher standing there patiently, holding a battered silver tray.  
  
“Kreacher!” he gasps, glaring. The elderly elf's expression doesn't change one bit. “What are you doing here?”  
  
“Kreacher has brought Mister Charles Weasley supper.” Kreacher smiles his dry, meaningless smile and Charlie frowns. He hasn't eaten since lunch yesterday. Whatever the house elf has prepared, it smells heavenly. . . .   
  
What if Xander got so hungry, he went in search of the kitchen? Or what if he needed the loo and couldn't remember where the safe one was?  
  
What if—any of a thousand things that could mean Xander's injury or death?  
  
“Kreacher, is Mister Xander still in the library?” Charlie demands, hand clamped down on his wand.  
  
The old elf blinks. “No, Mister Charles Weasley, Mister Xander is being on the fourth floor, in Master Regulus's room.”  
  
“ _Fuck_!” Charlie barrels past Kreacher, nearly knocking him over, running flat out for the front stairs. Cursing himself for his own stupidity and oversensitivity, and hoping Xander doesn't end up paying for both with his life.


	12. Xander's Tale (1/3)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After chatting with his new, ghostly companion, Xander has a tale to tell Charlie.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: Just borrowing. I'll put them back neatly when I'm done.

“ . . . and then, the next thing I knew, I was dead. And haunting my mother's house, no less.” Regulus snorts and watches Xander polish off his roast beef sandwich—crusts cut off, because Kreacher, despite being creepy, is apparently the world's best maker of sandwiches—a bit forlornly. “Not that I was terribly surprised at Riddle's betrayal, by that point. A singularly faithless man—no loyalty, no heart.”  
  
Xander chews his mouthful, and swallows before asking: “If you knew he was going to go all Vader on you, why didn't you go to your brother? He sounds like he was a stand-up guy.”  
  
Regulus sighs again. “He  _was_  a . . . 'stand-up guy,' as you say. But I was young. Foolish. Proud. I thought I could handle myself—get myself out of any trouble I'd got myself into. But I was wrong.”  
  
Xander puts down his sandwich and reaches out to let his hand hover just above Regulus's, where it rests on his transparent knee. “I'm sorry.”  
  
Regulus smiles a little. “It wasn't your fault. But thank you, nonetheless.”  
  
Xander goes back to eating his sandwich and lets Regulus watch him wistfully.  
  
“So, does Harry know you're here? I take it he doesn't, or he'd have mentioned you,” Xander says when the second sandwich is a memory and the third yet a delightful possibility. Regulus shifts slightly.  
  
“No one except Kreacher knows I'm here. And I'd . . . like it to stay that way, for now.” Regulus looks uncertain. “I didn't want to be known, at first, because I had no wish to be involved in their . . . war on any side. I thought I'd earned the right to skive off, what with being dead.” Regulus shrugs. “So I sat the war out. And it became easier and easier, especially after having years of no one but Kreacher to talk to, to let myself go unseen. Anyway it was rather a mortifying thought to show myself to so many people who, after a time, knew how I died. Who knew that it was my own stupid fault.”  
  
Xander shakes his head. “But it wasn't your fault, it was  _Riddle's_  fault.”  
  
“Perhaps . . . but I was warned, and I did not listen. That much, at least, was my fault.” Regulus sighs, his eyes searching Xander's face. “I must say it is rather odd to speak so freely to someone who bears such a close resemblance to my former master.”  
  
Xander blushes, feeling rather mortified, himself. Just when he manages to forget whose DNA he's got, something or someone brings it back.  
  
“And I can see that's the last thing you wanted to be reminded of,” Regulus says, brow furrowing. “I apologize . . . I appear to have lost whatever little knack for human interaction I once had.”  
  
“No—no, it's okay,” Xander says quickly, holding up his crumby hand—then brushing the crumbs off on his already wrinkled shirt. “I just forget, sometimes. Who I look like. Well, who I _am_. I don't just look like Tom Riddle, I  _am_  Tom Riddle. Physically and magically we're the same men,” he adds, and Regulus' transparent denim-blue eyes widen.  
  
“The same . . . but how is this possible?”  
  
Xander shrugs, this time, running one finger through a slightly greasy patch on his plate. “I can tell you what the Medi-witch told me, but it isn't much. The Ministry of Magic is currently going through all my memories since birth. They're hoping that'll tell them more about this whole mess. Eventually. For now, all anyone knows, me included, is that I have the same DNA—uh, biological make-up as Tom Riddle. Mystical maternity and physical paternity tests provded that. Plus, I speak Parcels-Tongue—”  
  
“A rare gift, that!” Regulus interjects excitedly, leaning forward. “Mother'd hoped one of us, either Sirius or I, might have the gift, but it never manifested itself in either of us. Though Sirius was a cracking animagus,” he says a little wistfully, a little enviously. “I never would've thought he had the patience to study or practice, you know.”  
  
“You mean animagi aren't born, they're . . . made? That someone could literally study and practice, and become one?” Xander tilts his head curiously. Regulus' lips purse in thought.  
  
“Well, any witch or wizard, yes. But just because one studies and practices is no guarantee of gaining the talent. Or, once you've gained it, being able to change back. If  _you_  ever decide to go that route, be careful,” Regulus warns.  
  
“Oh, I don't think it'll come to that. The Ministry probably won't even allow me to have a wand.” Xander sighs, and Regulus smiles darkly.  
  
“Well, the United Kingdom isn't the only place on Earth to get a wand or training. There's also Eastern Europe—or America, if you're eager to go back.”  
  
“I'm not,” Xander says shortly, shuddering, forcing down memories best forgotten. After all, those things had only happened to someone who no longer existed. No matter how real they felt, they simply weren't. Not for him. But. . . . “Charlie's in Eastern Europe—or he should be, running a dragon preserve. I'll bet there are schools or tutors a quick Floo ride away from the head-keeper's cottage!” he enthuses, before remembering that Charlie is no longer his . . .  _his_.  
  
Something very like despair crashes over him like a wave, so deep and numbing, he completely loses the thread of the conversation and his thoughts.  
  
“I'm sorry, what were we talking about?” he asks, blushing, and Regulus gives him a look of such compassion, Xander looks away. Down at his third, still untouched sandwich.  
  
“We were speaking of how you came by your physical resemblance to Riddle.” Regulus says kindly. “And, though we've only begun our acquaintance, I'm fairly certain that whomever you _look_  like, you're nothing like  _him_  in the ways that matter, such as your moral code and personality.”  
  
Xander smiles glumly. “How do  _you_  know?”  
  
“Well, for one thing, you—mistakenly, I believe—think you're bad for that Weasley chap because of the resemblance to Riddle. Now, if you were, in actuality, Tom Riddle, that wouldn't bother you at all. You'd keep him close to you till you lost interest, then discard him without regard for his loyalty and love.”  
  
Snorting, Xander pokes at his sandwich. “Isn't that what I'm doing, now?”  
  
“Hardly. Now, you're, as he says, pushing him away. But your motives are pure. And that  _does_ count for something. It—” Regulus suddenly falls silent, perking up like a bloodhound on the scent.  
  
“Terribly sorry, Xander,” he says hastily, sketching that little bow again before sinking through his bed—and presumably through the floor. Just as the last of him disappears, the door to the room blasts open so hard, it rebounds off the wall and falls off the hinges to land on the floor with a heavy  _thwoomp_.  
  
Xander himself nearly goes tumbling backwards off the foot of the bed in surprise.  
  
But he catches himself, and gazes wide-eyed at the doorway. Framed perfectly in it like some kind of wizard superhero, is Charlie Weasley, wand at the ready and an expression of grim determination on his normally friendly face.  
  
“Charlie?” he says, tentatively. “What are you doing here?”  
  
Eyes daring all over the room, Charlie enters slowly, warily, . “I could ask you the same thing. This floor is out of bounds till Harry gives us the tour. Anything could be denning here.” He swishes and flicks his wand. “ _Revelare_!”  
  
Xander glances around, himself, wondering if Regulus is still around, only in stealth mode. If this spell will reveal him, somehow.  
  
But nothing happens. Much as when the spell was tried on him by Hermione.  
  
 _Maybe it's the spell that's faulty_ , Xander thinks, watching Charlie makes his rounds of the room.  
  
When apparently satisfied that there's nothing waiting to jump out and attack them, Charlie's shoulders sag and he turns to the bed and Xander, glaring.  
  
“What were you  _thinking_  coming up here? Or were you thinking at all?” he demands, and Xander turns red, opening his mouth to tell Charlie about meeting Regulus, but then he remembers Regulus' wish to remain a secret, and sighs.  
  
“I just . . . I got bored, I guess, and I came up here. . . .” Xander lies lamely, only to see that glare intensify.  
  
“You got 'bored'?” Charlie's tone is deceptively pleasant, and it makes Xander's back go up.  
  
“Yeah. After you left me in the library,  _alone_ —“  
  
“Which it seemed to me was what you wanted,” Charlie interrupts to say tersely. “You know, to preserve your precious purity.”  
  
Turning even redder, Xander crosses his arms. “Well, no thanks to you, I was fine.”  
  
“No thanks to  _me_? No thanks to  _you_!” Charlie explodes, jamming his wand back in its holder. “You won't listen to me, you won't listen to  _Harry-bloody-Potter,_  are you just determined to get yourself maimed or killed while in this house?”  
  
Xander turns away, swinging his feet to the floor and standing up. He can remember his way back to his own room, Regulus had made sure of that. “It'd probably be better for everyone concerned if I  _did_  wind up dead. Then maybe you could all go back to your normal lives and forget about Tom Riddle again,” he mutters, walking toward the door.  
  
He's barely crossed Regulus' room when a steely hand grabs his arm and pulls him around till he's facing a  _this close_  Charlie once more.  
  
“Look me in the eyes and say that again,” Charlie says softly, with quiet, intent focus. “I dare you to look me in the eyes and tell me, Xander,  _tell me_  that I am and will be better off without you. Or with you dead.”  
  
So Xander does.  
  
Rather, he half-way does. He manages to look Charlie in the eyes—only because he can't help himself—and even opens his mouth to speak.  
  
But nothing comes out.  
  
Charlie searches his eyes and nods. “And if you were me and I was you, would you let me pull the shit you're pulling now—pushing me away and saying the things you've said? Would you walk away from me if I was Gellert Grindlewald's twin brother or doppelganger—leave me on my own to fend for myself.”  
  
Xander finally looks down. At Charlie's's collarbone, at his shoulders. At the red chest hair curling out of his shirt. “No.”  
  
“Would you, if you were in my place, ever give up on me as something too lost or too evil to be loved, or would you stand by me.”  
  
“It's not the same thing, Charlie. . . .”  
  
“Actually, it is.” Charlie tilts Xander's face up till their eyes meet again. The anger is gone from his, but the intensity is not. “It's the same thing, and you're playing double standards. You'd stand by me through Hell or high water, but I'm not allowed to do the same.”  
  
Xander blinks and a tear runs down his face. “That's because I'd do anything to protect you, Charlie. Especially from the way I've fucked up my life. You think you know the whole story, but you don't.”  
  
“Whatever it is, it won't make me stop loving you,” Charlie says simply, and Xander's face scrunches up in an effort to prevent more tears from falling.  
  
“But you may wish it had,” he chokes out, finally giving in and reaching up to wipe his eyes.  
  
Charlie bites his lip. “Then tell me. Scare me away with the awful things you've done in your past.”  
  
“Charlie—“  
  
“I'm serious, Xander.” Charlie cups Xander's face in his hand. “If you want to scare me away fom you, here's your chance. Tell me what horrible things you've done.”  
  
Xander sighs again, feeling lost and defeated. “It's . . . I've . . . I've never told anyone this, so, bear with me if it's kinda garbled.” He finds himself saying, and Charlie nods, turning them both towards Regulus' bed. He moves the plate with Xander's sandwich to the night table and sits Xander down before sitting, himself. He takes Xander's hands, which are now clammy, between his own, rubbing warmth back into them.  
  
“I'm all ears, love,” he murmurs, looking into Xander's eyes. “Tell me.”  
  
Drawing strength from that gaze, Xander takes a breath and starts at the middle.  
  
“I'd been drifting for . . . I dunno . . . eight months, maybe. Since right after my Slayer, Amina, was killed in action. Finally, after doing desk work for nearly a year, I took my sabbatical from the New Council.  
  
“I say 'sabbatical,' but I don't think I ever intended to go back to it. I don't think I  _could_  have.” Xander pauses, and looks down at his hands in Charlie's. At the freckles and burn scars on the backs of Charlie's hands and up his wrists, to where the flannel shirt covers.  
  
“I was drinking my way across Europe, when  _he_  found me, in a grimy little off-the-beaten-track pub in Bucharest. I don't know if he was looking for me, or if he'd just stumbled across me and thought  _oh, what luck!_  Hell, I don't even remember running into him, exactly. I just know that after the latest in a long line of hard-drinking nights, I woke up with a hangover, in a strange bed.”  
  


*

  
  
_Xander opens bleary, aching eyes to white, overcast light and hisses, shutting them tight again. Upon hissing, the pulsing in his head immediately ramps up to throbbing and he moans pitifully.  
  
His mouth tastes like a barroom floor and his whole body is one big ache: joints, muscles, and bones. But, upon realizing he's on his stomach, he attempts to roll onto his side, in preparation for getting up and hobbling his way to the third floor bathroom.  
  
While making this only partially successful attempt, he notes a very unfamiliar ache in a place he's not used to noticing _at all _.  
  
_ Oh, God, what the hell  _happened_  last night? _he thinks, alarmed, and rubbing his closed eyes before opening them just a little. Then a little bit more. Then a little bit more, as they get used to the bright, overcast light.  
  
It take a couple of minutes, but Xander can eventually see that he is _not _in his hostel. He is, in fact, in what appears to be a hotel room. A cursory glance around shows that it is a somehow_ lived in _hotel room, and that he is the only one in it.  
  
He tries to finish rolling over and regrets it instantly. The throbbing increases in intensity and his stomach very nearly rebels. Not to mention that pain in regions best left unthought about making moving uncomfortable, to say the least.  
  
Xander is—well, not content to lay there, but resigned to it, for the meantime. Which means facing whomever he went home with the previous evening. Not something Xander is particularly keen on doing, but he realizes it may be unavoidable. . . .  
  
But just the thought of being prone and helpless when his . . . partner returns is enough to make Xander grit his teeth and, in one quick, nauseating, horribly painful move, roll over onto his other side, not stopping till his feet touch floor and he's standing . . . however shakily.  
  
Xander pinches his nose shut to stave off puking, and looks around for his clothes. They're not, as he might have expected, scattered all over the room, but folded neatly on the room's only chair.  
  
_Well, thank goodness for small favors _, he thinks as his stomach calms a little._ I just might make it out of here with a little of my dignity _.  
  
Then he looks down at the bed he'd just vacated as something reddish catches his eye.  
  
It's blood. Little splotches of blood on the sheets.  
  
“What the _hell _happened last night?!” Xander moans out loud, checking himself over quickly for injuries. He finds some scratches, and a few hand-shaped bruises, but nothing that would have bled, let alone_ that _much.  
  
“I believe I . . . _got your cherry, _as the saying goes.” An amused, British, vaguely familiar voice says from directly behind him, and Xander jumps, spinning around. He finds himself face to face with the absolute last person he'd have ever expected. For a moment, all he can do is splutter in the face of that smug smile, cool, measuring gaze, and perfectly-pressed Armani casual wear.  
  
Then finally, he's exclaiming, almost at the top of his lungs: “_Ethan Rayne _?!”  
  
That smug smile becomes a smirk and those measuring eyes become elevator eyes, going down Xander, then back up again, thought not without lingering at crotch-level for far too long.. “At your service—and the pleasure of servicing you was, let me assure you, _all _mine, Xander.”  
  
Xander can only gape. Gape, and connect that smirk with the dull, but persistent pain where the sun don't shine, the blood on the sheets, and that amused voice saying _got your cherry _.  
  
Then his stomach gurgles audibly, despite the continued pinching shut of his nose, and he's looking around the room frantically. He races toward the first door he sees—”Closet, dear boy,” Ethan Rayne says sharply—then he veers left to the door adjacent, slamming it shut on what surely has to be the worst hangover delusion known to man.  
  
He feels around for then flicks the light switch, turns around, and finds himself face-to-face with . . . himself: gaunt, sickly-pale face, lank, grown-out hair hanging in his eye—_eyes _. . . it's been nearly a year since Willow grew him the new one, green as spring grass, for some reason, and he still can't get used to thinking of himself as having two, once more. Or seeing this fact in a mirror, for that matter—stubble of_ Miami Vice _-proportions covering the lower half of his face.  
  
Why anyone, even someone like Ethan Rayne, would take him home, even just for the dubious pleasure of buttfucking him, is quite beyond Xander. Unless. . . .  
  
Unless it was part of some plan or other. After all, if you compromise the weakest Scoob, you compromise the whole gang. And, time and again, Xander has proved himself to be the weakest member of the Scoobies. Weak enough that because of him . . . people got hurt. Even died.  
  
It wouldn't be the first time. But Xander had thought Amina's death might be the last. The last time he was used to hurt or even kill someone he loves.  
  
But his streak seems to be continuing. Straight down from the first, from Jesse, to . . . whomever Ethan Rayne wants to hurt now.  
  
_What a worthless pawn I turned out to be _, he thinks, and laughs mirthlessly. His stomach gurgles again._  
  
Then he's prostrate over the toilet and hurling epically—promising the porcelain god and the Powers That Be that if they kill him now, he'll never, ever drink again.  
  



	13. Xander's Tale (2/3)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After chatting with his new, ghostly companion, Xander has a tale to tell Charlie.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: Just borrowing. I'll put them back neatly when I'm done. 
> 
> ALSO NOTE: DUB-CON HAPPENS IN THIS CHAPTER!

_After puking up the contents of his thorax, including several of his ribs, it feels like, Xander rinses his mouth out with copious amounts of the mouthwash on the sink, eschewing the toothbrush in the holder. He is_ not _sharing a toothbrush with Ethan-fucking-Rayne.  
  
Though, apparently, they've shared more than a toothbrush, in the past twelve hours. A thought that's worth a shudder. If, indeed, Willow had found a way to gay him up as requested . . . she sure picked a terrible night to do it.  
  
Xander sighs. Then, despite Ethan Rayne waiting outside—maybe _because _Ethan Rayne's waiting outside, though it's mostly because he feels gross and violated, and not in the good way—Xander takes a shower. A thorough, scrubby, my-skin-is-now-bright-pink shower that lasts for a small eternity.  
  
But all good things, even showers that delay the inevitable, must come to an end, and this one does when Xander's stomach starts to settle and his hangover begins to subside, just a bit: the thudding in his head becomes less of a marching band and more of a small percussion group.  
  
He turns off the water and reaches for the towel rack. Grabs the one unused towel hanging there and dries himself off vigorously before wrapping the towel around his waist and stepping out into the bathroom, proper.  
  
He wipes the condensation off the mirror and looks himself over: eyes still bloodshot, but still both there, so, that's a plus. Face still pale, but not deathly so, anymore. Hair still hanging in his face, but at least it's clean.  
  
_You're gorgeous. Now lets get dressed so we can get the hell outta here _, Xander's brain orders, but not without some anxiety. If Ethan Rayne doesn't want Xander to leave, Xander's pretty sure he's going to be staying here a while.  
  
Shuddering again, he pads to the bathroom door and opens it, letting out hot, soap-scented air. He peers around the door frame.  
  
Rayne's laying in bed—it looks like housekeeping's been in—in that expensive casual wear, minus the shoes, flipping through a magazine backwards.  
  
“Such a waste . . . getting so clean when I'm only going to dirty you up again,” he murmurs, glancing over at Xander with that awful smirk. Now that Xander's in a state to appreciate the differences time, and likely time spent as a guest of The Initiative, have wrought. If anything, Ethan Rayne is paler than Xander remembers, his dark hair liberally shot through with grey. His face is more lined, and not from smiling—or even smirking. His eyes are still playful and dancing in that dangerous way, but they're wary and haunted, too, underneath.  
  
“Uh . . . not gonna happen.” Xander shakes off his introspection and sidles along the edge of the room, to the chair where wait his clothes.  
  
“Ah, but it already did, my boy.”  
  
“Not gonna happen _twice _, Mr. Rayne,” Xander corrects himself, shivering as he picks up his boxers and tries to figure out a way to get them on without disturbing the towel. A few seconds of serious cogitating later, he realizes his mistake, for suddenly, long hands are on his hips, unforgiving and tight, at least before then after the towel is whipped away.  
  
Xander freezes. He hadn't even heard Rayne get up.  
  
Rayne chuckles rather darkly, pulling Xander's hips back against his own. He's more than hard enough for Xander to feel, to fear, to. . . .  
  
. . . moan, as that hardness is ground against him. As Rayne's cool breath stirs his wet hair and makes him shiver. As Rayne's right hand snakes around to his front to grab Xander's not-as-limp-as-it-was cock and stroke it.  
  
“You particularly liked it when I sucked your cock till you came . . . with my finger up your lovely arse,” Rayne whispers silkily, his hand tightening to a point of almost pain as his thumb strokes across the tip of Xander's cock.  
  
“Gah—“ Xander yelps as Rayne thrusts hard against him. He feels huge and thick and this is _so _not happening . . . is it?  
  
“Stop, please—“ Xander breathes, even as he pushes his cock in and out of Rayne's mean grasp. It _feels _amazing . . . better than any handjob Xander's ever had, and despite his words, Xander does_ not _want it to stop. It has to be magic, doesn't it? Some kind of evil sex-magic?  
  
“Do you remember anything at all about last night, or shall I recount it for you? Blow by blow, as it were?” Rayne asks, and Xander's blushing with what little blood hasn't rushed to his cock. “Shall I tell you how you begged for my prick from the moment I brushed that tight little hole of yours with my finger? That, in spite of what you've probably been thinking, I didn't have to use either magic or illicit drugs to get what I wanted from you?” Another hard thrust against Xander's ass that drives his cock through the channel of Rayne's hand, and before he can stop himself, he's coming, gasping and spilling over Rayne's fist, onto his folded shirt, the world whiting out briefly. . . .  
  
But it comes back into focus, alright, as Rayne maneuvers him over to the bed, shoving him down on his stomach.  
  
Xander, far too come-stupid and discombobulated to quite realize what's going on . . . doesn't realize what's going on until Rayne's pushing his left leg up and out. Confused, but not yet worried, Xander glances over his shoulder in time to see Rayne—who's now only half-dressed—pull off his cream-colored shirt, leaving him in only a white wife-beater, and then spit into his palm.  
  
“The poor man's lubricant, alas,” Rayne says apologetically, but he's smiling. And it's not a kind smile.  
  
Then he's stroking his cock with his spitty hand before kneeling on the bed between Xander's legs.  
  
“What're you—” Xander starts to sit up, but Rayne's on him. Literally, his weight bearing Xander back down to the bed. One hand goes to the back of Xander's neck, the other is fumbling between them. Rayne's fingers, cool and barely wet, find their way to Xander's ass and push between his cheeks without ceremony, brushing his entrance with quick swipes. “No, goddamnit—”  
  
“Sorry, my darling, but it's a little too late for playing hard to get,” Rayne leans down to murmur in his ear, biting it just a little too hard to be playful. At the same time, his finger breaches the first guardian ring of muscle, pushing into Xander without slowing down.  
  
It hurts.  
  
But not in an entirely bad way, to Xander's horrified surprise. Especially when Rayne's questing finger finds his prostate and fireworks go off in Xander's body. He feels the first tingling in his groin that means his body is working hard to get hard again.  
  
Tears spring to his eyes and he shivers intensely. “I—I don't want this. _Stop _,” he exhales quietly, and Rayne chuckles, applying pressure to Xander's prostate till his eyes are squeezed shut, explosions going off behind them as his body shakes and begs for more. His hands are bunched in the sheets above his head and he's spreading his legs wider without Rayne's prompting.  
  
“I don't think you _want _me to stop,” Rayne teases, and Xander opens eyes he really hadn't been aware of closing. All he can see is the headboard, the duvet he's laying on, and his fists bunched in said duvet.  
  
Then he's clenching his eyes shut as Rayne adds a second finger, and it, too, _burns _, and it_ hurts _, and the scissoring motions Rayne is making don't help. Xander gasps and whimpers.  
  
“It would hurt less, if you'd relax.”  
  
“Seriously?” Xander's laugh is a startled bark, and more tears fall. “Did you _seriously _just say that?”  
  
“Last night, you were _very _relaxed.”  
  
“Last night I was very drunk.”  
  
“And you begged so _prettily _. . . I do believe I'd like to hear you beg for my prick again.” Those fingers are once more applied to Xander's prostate and he shakes and moans.  
  
“Yeah, well . . . I'd like . . . a million dollars . . . wish in one hand. . . .” he gasps out.  
  
Rayne removes his fingers with a sigh and for a few seconds, Xander feels empty, and certain, though not entirely happy, that this is it. That it's _over _.  
  
Then, something larger than fingers is pressing against his entrance, pushing past that guardian muscle like it's not even there, to fill Xander so completely, he feels as if he can barely breathe by the time Ethan Rayne's cock has finally come to a stop, deep inside him.  
  
And if he'd thought the fingers hurt . . . well, he'd been naïve.   
  
“Oh, _God _,” Xander groans, panting and in pain so intense it makes his insides cramp and his muscles clench around the intruding organ.  
  
Rayne makes a noise low in his throat and his hands grasp Xander's hips again, tight enough to bruise. “Oh, that's _lovely _,” he says, his voice taut and shaking. Xander tries to claw his way up the bed and off of Ethan Rayne's skewering cock, but it's no good. He has no real leverage, and Rayne's stronger and heavier than he looks, his body splayed on top of Xander's.  
  
“Be good, my dear boy, and I'll make it ever so nice for you,” he declares breathlessly, laughing and pulling out—and dragging Xander's insides with him, it feels like—but for the head of his cock. Then he's forcing his way back in past muscle and despite Xander's pained grunts.  
  
And it's lather, rinse, repeat till, by skill or miracle, Rayne manages to find Xander's prostate again. Those same explosions go off in Xander's body and fireworks behind his eyes, making him break out in a light sweat—making him _harder _despite the fact that this is_ not _something he wants.  
  
Right?  
  
Xander's body—now pushing back to meet every thrust as Ethan Rayne, with one arm around his waist, helps him clamber onto his hands and knees—seems to believe otherwise.  
  
“Such an eager boy,” Rayne murmurs, his other hand leaving Xander's hip to pet his hair. Xander shudders, but goes back for more, Flinching at the flat, slapping sounds their bodies make when coming together.  
  
It seems to go on forever, Xander almost, but not quite, getting what he needs to come for a second time.  
  
Till finally, Rayne's rhythm falters, becomes just mindless thrusting . . . then he stills, his cock lodged as deep as the laws of physics will allow. The next thing Xander knows, there's the odd sensation of being filled with another man's come . . . and he's not sure he likes the feeling. Not sure at all.  
  
But then Rayne, instead of pulling out and getting off of him, continues, half-hard, to fuck him, one hand leaving Xander's hip again, this time to reach-around to Xander's painfully hard, leaking cock. But he pauses before he's so much as brushed it with his fingertips.  
  
“Such a good boy deserves a treat,” Rayne whispers in his ear, kissing it like a lover would. Then he's got his mean grip on Xander's cock, stripping the living Christ out of it and Xander's coming so hard, he blacks out for a little bit. Long enough for Rayne to pull out of him—a sharply painful feeling that lingers till well after Xander's come to—and arrange him on the bed just so. . . .  
  
Just so Rayne can spoon up behind him and twine around him like a snake. Or a rope to keep him from leaving.  
  
Xander, as exhausted and achy—and strangely more sexually sated than he's ever been in his life—as he is, won't be doing much leaving for the time being.  
  
Rayne seems to like petting him: hair, arm, chest, flank, as if he's a giant, fur-less cat. It's annoying, but not as annoying as it would be if the man was talking while he did it.  
  
And as their sweat cools—and there's a lovely thought: they're covered in each other's sweat . . . both intimate and gross—Xander doesn't know whether he wants to run away screaming or beg for more. He suspects it's a combination of both.  
  
“What do you want from me?” he asks wearily, too tired for games that Rayne's too clever to let him win, anyway.  
  
Rayne kisses his ear again. “The same thing I want from any lovely young man in my bed. Obviously.”  
  
Xander sighs. “If you're looking for a way to screw with my friends—“  
  
Rayne snorts. “As you young people might say, I'm so over that, now.” He sits up a little so he can see Xander's face. Xander turns to meet that dark, amused gaze warily.  
  
“What do you _want _?” he asks again, and Rayne leans down to kiss him—a possessive sort of thing that doesn't really thrill Xander, but which Rayne himself seems to enjoy.  
  
“I want what Ripper wanted, and what poor Rupert never got,” he breathes, breaking the kiss to grin like the cat that got the canary.  
  
“What does _that _mean?”  
  
Rayne rolls his eyes. “Pretty, but obtuse. Utterly delightful.” He lays back down behind Xander, one hand splaying on Xander's chest, then twisting his nipples rather harder than anyone_should _. It kinda hurts, and Xander kinda doesn't like it. . . .  
  
But then again, he kinda does.  
  
“Stop it,” he says, and Rayne simply laughs, his breath cool in Xander's hair. But this time, he stops, leaving his fingers to circle Xander's nipples teasingly.  
  
“What happened just now was  _nothing_ , you realize. Nothing. Not compared to what we  _could_ have. . . .”  
  
“What're you, proposing marriage?” Xander snarks, and Rayne laughs again.  
  
“Actually, I'm proposing a partnership, of sorts.” Rayne's hand slides down Xander's chest, to his stomach and abdomen, playing in the now tacky come drying there. “There's great power in sexual magic, you know. Why, if I'd had any idea Ripper hadn't taken you—that you were a_virgin, _I'd have saved buggering you for a . . . later date. Ah, well. Hindsight.” Rayne brings his hand up to Xander's face, his sticky fingers brushing Xander's lips.  
  
“Eww, no!” Xander turns his face away. Rayne sighs.  
  
“So prudish for one so young. These are the days in which to be a libertine, Xander.” The hand disappears, and Xander has a feeling Rayne's licking it clean. No doubt with that smirk on his long, pale face.  
  
 _Gross_ , he thinks, trying belatedly, half-heartedly, to pull away. But Rayne's grip is like iron, for all that he's spindly.  
  
“So, what . . . you want me to help you make magic by having sex with you?” Xander could not possibly sound more dubious.  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“And _why _would I want to help_ you _?”  
  
“To keep me out of trouble?” Rayne asks with faux innocence, his hand returning to Xander's chest where it pets and rubs and strokes. “To prevent me from bothering your precious friends—Rupert included?”  
  
Xander winces, imagining the havoc Ethan Rayne could bring into his friends lives, even now. Willow and Kennedy on the outs and for keeps, last he heard. Buffy and Angel's marriage on the rocks. Giles drinking more than he should and thinking no one knows. Spike . . . burning through his immortality like it means nothing. Andrew pining obviously after an oblivious, doggedly straight Gunn. Dawn turning herself into super!Watcher at the cost of her personal life. Faith and Robin's daughter, in and out of the hospital. And Illyria . . . who even knows what was going on with _that _one?  
  
Xander imagines Rayne bouncing into their fragile lives, the explosive, devastating X-factor, and shudders.  
  
“And, at any rate, in return I can give you something you've been wanting for years,” Rayne says casually, then chuckles. “Beside a hard prick up the arse, that is.”  
  
“And what would that be?” Xander asks, blushing and doubtful. Or he is till Rayne leans over and whispers in his ear.  
  
Xander immediately freezes.  
  
“You can't . . . you're lying. You're not that powerful.”  
  
“Oh, but I am. Or should I say: _we _are?” There's a smile, neither kind nor pleasant in Rayne's voice. “I can give you one chance to change one thing. In return, all I require is the use of your body for the next . . . oh, three months. Whether spell-casting, or not.”  
  
_ Three months as Ethan Rayne's fuck-toy! Craziness! Insane troll logic! _Xander's brain exclaims, while his libido feels that three months isn't that bad at all.  
  
Xander's gut is curiously mum on the subject.  
  
“What kinda spells would we be doing?” he asks suspiciously.  
  
“Why, whatever spells I get paid to do, of course. Mostly low level spells and magical rites,” Rayne admits. “Little spells can be worth big money.”  
  
“If they're so low level and little, why do you need _me _then?”  
  
“I don't. But sexually-based magic is fast, powerful, and, well, _fun _.” Rayne chuckles. “It drains my own power far less than the newer forms of magic do. And it's less . . . costly than the . . . older forms.” This time, Rayne is the one to shudder. Then he clear his throat. “So, do we have a deal?”  
  
Xander sighs, closing his eyes. “One chance to change anything I want, in return for letting you fuck me under the full moon?” he asks quietly. “And how do I know you'll kep your word? Or that you won't slit my throat when you're tired of fucking me?”  
  
“I won't do any of those things. I promise.”  
  
“Speaking of things that're likely to break. . . .”  
  
“I'll sign a mystical contract, if that eases your mind. One that's binding before the Powers, themselves.” Rayne pushes his pelvis against Xander's ass. He's starting to get hard again. Something that should fill Xander with trepidation, but does not. He in fact starts breathing hard and pushing back against Rayne.  
  
Rayne rolls Xander onto his back to look into his eyes. His own are shrewd and serious, but otherwise unreadable. Then he's leaning down to give Xander another one of those thorough, but underwhelming kisses, getting between Xander's legs and pressing his cock against Xander's.  
  
_That _contact, sets off those fireworks again, and soon Xander's moaning into Rayne's kisses, letting Rayne push his legs further apart.  
  
“Do we have a deal, Xander?” Rayne asks again, and Xander thinks as best he can for a moment. Of the long line of people he'd let down over the course of his life. Starting with the first. . . .  
  
In that moment, Xander knows _exactly _what he's going to do with his one chance, and what his one thing will be._  
  
“We have a deal, Mr. Rayne.” Xander says, holding out his hand for shaking. Rayne ignores it, and kisses him again, but briefly.  
  
That smug, amused smile makes a comeback.  
  
And it is neither kind, nor pleasant.  
  


*

  
  
Charlie watches Xander stare intently at his hands for long minutes before asking, in a tone tight with anger: “And did he keep his promise?”  
  
Xander glances up at him, tears in his eyes, then away again. Charlie sighs and swallows his anger, putting his arm around Xander's shoulders. “It's not you I'm angry at, Xander, it's this . . . Ethan Rains fellow. If he were here in front of me, I'd . . . well, I don't know  _what_  I'd do. He . . . took advantage of you, physically and mentally, in a low moment,” Charlie all but growls, fingers resting on his holstered wand, and Xander looks over at him, eyes still wet, and red from holding back tears. “I'd kill him, if I could.”  
  
“Don't. I'm at least as much at fault, Charlie. He knew what I wanted more than I did, it turns out. If I didn't want . . . what he gave me, I'd have fought him harder. He probably would have stopped if I'd really meant it,” Xander says hesitantly. He doesn't sound as if he believes it, and that makes Charlie angrier. “And in the end, he was as good as his word. He gave me what he promised.”  
  
“Which was?” Charlie's calm, terse way of asking:  _What, Xander, was so bloody important that you let this bastard use your body for three months? This bastard who practically raped you into doing what he wanted? What could possibly be worth it?_  
  
Xander smiles a little, looking down at his hands again. “A chance to go back. To fix what I messed up.”  
  
“Go back? Back where?”  
  
Biting his lip Xander goes on: “I—I went back to the beginning, and I  _saved_  him, Charlie. I saved Jesse.”


	14. Xander's Tale (3/3)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After chatting with his new, ghostly companion, Xander has a tale to tell Charlie.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: Just borrowing. I'll put them back neatly when I'm done.

_“So, um . . . what did you say your name was?”  
  
The smoking-hot blonde smiles—so prettily—and says: “Darla.”  
  
“Darla.” Jesse feels himself grinning his biggest, gooniest grin, but can't help himself. Though it doesn't seem like Darla's about to go screaming into the night. “You know, I haven't seen you around before. Are you from around here?”  
  
“No, but I have family here.” Darla shrugs, her smile brightening—a feat that should be impossible, but apparently isn't. Jess thinks he might be falling in serious like.  
  
“Have I met them?” he asks, leaning closer to her. And she, in turn, does not lean away from him. In fact, _she _leans closer, too. Smoochies? Might be in the offing. Jesse crosses his fingers in his pockets.  
  
“No . . . but you probably will.”  
  
And they're still leaning toward each other! Closer and closer, and her eyes are so _blue _. . . though there seem to be gold flecks in toward the center, which is weird . . . but kind sexy, too.  
  
This close, he can smell her perfume, and something else . . . something like . . . old soil and musty air. Though those latter two smells could be the _Bronze _, which is known for many things, but rarely for its fresh and lovely scent.  
  
But never mind that! _Smoochies! _With a hot, older—maybe even_ college _-older—girl!  
  
Jesse's lips are puckering and his eyes are fluttering shut when suddenly there's a guy coming out of the shadows of the stretch of hallway between the main floor and the bathrooms. In his surprise, Jesse only has time to note that the guy looks like _Xander _, only . . ._ old _. At least thirty.  
  
Then this Xander look-a-like raises a . . . a  _wooden stake_ , like for _camping _, and shit, and drives it into Darla's back. Jesse screams and Darla freezes in the midst of turning toward the look-a-like, and then she . . . explodes into dust or something, coating Jesse and the Xander look-a-like. The former immediately sneezes, while the latter simply snorts.  
  
“Not in this life, you bitch,” the Xander look-a-like mutters grimly, dropping the stake and turning away. But before he's taken more than a few steps, he disappears with a _pop _ _, air rushing in to fill the place where his body had been.  
  
Leaving Jesse McNally to blink and cough and—once that's all done—faint.  
  
__

*

_  
  
Xander floats, for a split second, in complete nothingness—a nowhere so dark and empty, it fills him with an existential terror greater than any he's ever known. . . .  
  
Then he's suddenly _somewhere _. In fact, he's in a hotel room. A hotel room that's only familiar because of its lived-in feel.  
  
And because of the man laying in bed, in his clothes (except for his shoes) flipping through a magazine.  
  
“Ethan?” Xander says shivering, and, clearly startled, the man looks up. “It worked. You were totally right—I went back, I saved his life, and that murdering bitch is so much dust in the wind.” Chuckling, Xander removes his coat and tosses it at the room's only chair—Ethan hates it when he's sloppy, but even Ethan's snark would be welcome, now, because— “I did it! You were right!”  
  
Ethan smiles his smug, amused smile. “Of course I was right, dear boy. Now, if you'd be so kind as to tell me who you are and how you got into my room. . . ?” Ethan puts down the magazine and is suddenly holding a small caliber pistol. That smile widens at Xander's dismay. “Please,” he adds politely._  
  


*

  
  
“ . . . had to tell him the whole thing—the prior three months and parts of the seventeen years before that—twice before he began to believe me,” Xander says, smiling ruefully. “In the meantime, he's looking completely blank as I'm telling him, and  _I'm_  slowly realizing just how fucked I may be.”  
  
“Merlin,” Charlie breathes, frowning. “So . . . killing that vampire and saving your friend's life somehow erased your existence?”  
  
Xander shakes his head. “No. Not exactly . . . see, my theory is,  _someone_  hadda get taken that night, or Buffy, the Slayer, wouldn't have had the incentive needed to go after the Master, and Willow and I—Willow and  _Jesse_  wouldn't have had the incentive to help her and Giles.” He sighs. “From what Ethan could find out with his . . . connections . . . since Jesse didn't die that night,  _I_ had to. I got turned to be used as bait, then staked a day later in the  _Bronze_ , by one of my best friends. By Jesse.”  
  
“And . . . how much else was changed by what you did, Xander?” Charlie asks gently.  
  
Xander bites his lip again. “Most of the stuff that I had a hand in in the original time-line, Jesse did in the alternate time-line. In  _this_  time-line,  _Jesse_  is Xander. He's the Zeppo, the heart of the Scooby gang.” When Charlie blinks blankly, Xander's rueful smile turns fond. “He's the me of the my group of friends. All I did was swap sugar for salt, and get myself erased, in the process. Nothing else changed, except. . . .” he looks down. “Anya, my ex-fiancee, is still alive, and married to Giles. Happily, to hear Ethan tell it. According to him,  _Ripper and that she-demon_ had been in  _disgusting wedded bliss_  for over twelve years, by the time I, uh, returned from my little trip back to 1996. They even have children.” Xander laughs a little. “How fucking weird is _that_? And wonderful, too. I only ever wanted . . . only ever wanted them all to be happy.”  
  
He looks up into Charlie's eyes, his own shining with unshed tears. “And they  _are_. Faith and Jesse are married, Buffy married Robin Wood, and they're expecting their first child. Willow and Tara . . . they've been together almost as long as Giles and Ahn. Angel is human, now, and apparently a PI in Los Angeles with Spike. They're seeing Cordelia and Wesley, respectively. Gunn is engaged to a girl named Fred, who was the incubator for a god-king named Illyria . . . at least in  _my_  time-line. And Dawn . . . she's still a Watcher. Still . . . throwing herself into her work like it's the only thing she has.” Xander shakes his head. “She doesn't even notice that both Connor and Andrew have crushes on her.”  
  
Charlie sighs. He gets the gist of what Xander's telling him about his friends—Xander has talked about them, at length, in the past. Enough that Charlie knows they've had difficult lives fraught with much sadness.  
  
And now, Xander's found away to erase much of that sadness and difficulty . . . by erasing himself.  
  
But he, himself, is left with the knowledge that the only thing that had been standing in the way of his friends having happy lives was . . . himself.  
  
“How do you know all this, if you haven't been to see them?”  
  
Xander smiles wryly, self-deprecatingly. “Ethan's got more spells for spying than he has fingers and toes, and I had . . . ways of convincing him to use them to let me get glimpses.”  
  
“Oh, Xand,” Charlie says, hugging his lover close. Xander goes willingly, turning his face into the side of Charlie's neck. Only then do the tears start to fall.  
  
“They're so  _happy_ ,” he breathes shakily. “You don't know how bad I want to be a part of that—to go to them and tell them what I did and who I am, and have them believe me and want me to be a Scooby once more. But I  _can't_  . . . look at how bad I messed up their lives just by existing in the first place. Who knows what would happen if I existed for them, again? How that would wreck their lives?”  
  
He pulls back a little to look up into Charlie's eyes, his own tear-reddened. “I'm doing the right thing, right? It's been so long and I've been so lonely, and I don't even know anymore. Ethan says the only way to keep everybody in their happy, cozy little lives is for me to stay out of them.” Xander wipes his eyes. “I just—especially with this whole Riddle thing—wish I could go to them and ask for help. But they wouldn't even know me . . . not that that would stop them from helping me, but what if they recognized me? And I'm pretty sure Willow would. Would their lives come tumbling down like a house of cards?”  
  
Charlie sighs again, leaning in to kiss Xander's forehead. “I don't know. I know precious little about time travel. I don't know enough to tell you with any certainty that their lives would change for the worse if you were to go to them for help. I do know that original time-lines  _will_  try to reassert themselves at any opportunity. The question is, whether  _you're_  that opportunity.” He shrugs apologetically. “Hermione wrote a brilliant thesis on time travel, once upon a decade. Perhaps she might be able to tell you. . . .”  
  
Xander shakes his head, glancing away. “I don't want to tell anyone else.”  
  
“Why?” Charlie turns Xander's face back to his own. Looks into those lovely, strange eyes and feels his heart beat faster. It's always been that way and always wil be. “You know she won't tell anyone if you ask her not to—not even Ron or Harry.”  
  
Xander turns red. “It's . . . not a part of my life I'm proud of, Charlie. Who else but Xander-fucking-Harris would find a way to erase his own existence? Who else would whore himself out to  _Ethan Rayne_  to do so?” He laughs bitterly. “Though I shouldn't speak so badly about Ethan. He's the only reason I'm not destitute on the streets of Bucharest right now.”  
  
Frowning once more, Charlie studies Xander's face. “How do you mean?”  
  
Turning even redder, Xander's eyes dart away, then back to Charlies, and he takes a deep, steadying breath. “I had no proof that I even existed, Charlie. Even my I.D. that I took back with me was all blank, no name, no pictures. I wouldn't have been able to get a job or a place to stay . . . Ethan Rayne gave me both. At a cost, of course.”  
  
“And what was that cost?" Charlie asks, though he's fairly sure he knows the answer.  
  
“What do you  _think_?” Xander pulls away from Charlie and stands up to pace Regulus Black's room. “I had no place to stay, no other job prospects. And all he wanted from me was my body. It seemed like such a small price to pay for some sort of security in this world. This world I don't even belong in.” He wraps his arms around himself as if cold. “The apartment I'm staying in, he got for me. For  _us_ , I suppose, because he stayed there whenever he was in town. Which hasn't been often, lately.”  
  
“Lately?”  
  
Xander snorts. “The day I met you, he'd just left town a week before. For where, I don't know. He never told me anything about his jobs outside of Romania. Never told me about jobs that he didn't need to fuck me for.” Sighing, he stops pacing for a few moments. “He's been gone for nearly five months, now. Usually, he's not gone for more than five days. Occasionally seven. I don't know what's happened to him, just that I've been living off his credit cards and I can't be doing that forever. Eventually they'll be maxed-out and I'll wind up just a homeless person who doesn't even exist. I'll be nothing to no one.”  
  
Charlie stands up and crosses over to where Xander stands, arms wrapped around himself. He doesn't hesitate to add his own arms to the mix. He's surprised when Xander leans against him gratefully.  
  
“I will  _never_  let that happen to you, love,” Charlie promises, squeezing Xander tight. “For as long as you live, you will never have to depend on someone like Ethan Rains for your survival again. You're a wizard, now, and once you train up, you'll be a force to be reckoned with. And until  _that_ day, you have me to take care of you.”  
  
“But what if . . . what if they don't let me have a wand because I'm . . . you know?” Xander asks solemnly, his eyes on Charlie's. Charlie brings their foreheads together.  
  
“I don't think it'll come to that. But if it does, you'll still have me. You'll  _always_  have me. I love you.”  
  
Xander's hand comes up to cup Charlie's face, his thumb caressing Charlie's cheek tenderly. “Even after everything I've told you?”  
  
Charlie smiles. “ _Especially_  after everything you've told me, Xand.” He closes the distance between their faces and kisses Xander gently—just a press of their lips together. But Xander's quick to pull away.  
  
“I'm damaged goods, Charlie.  _Nonexistent_  damaged goods,” he says, and Charlie snorts.  
  
“You're a free agent, Xand. Don't you see? Your fate isn't written down anywhere, in anyone's book or crystal ball. You're free to make of yourself whomever or whatever you want!” Charlie says excitedly, really getting behind the idea. But Xander snorts again, looking down.  
  
“Haven't you heard?  _Freedom_  is just another word for  _nothing left to lose_. Janis Joplin said that.”  
  
“Well, no offense to this Ms. Joplin, but she didn't know what she was talking about,” Charlie huffs, leaning in to kiss Xander again. This kiss is markedly less chaste than the previous one, and when it ends, their arms are tight around each other, their bodies pressed together.  
  
“Look at it this way, if you prefer,” Charlie whispers softly on Xander's lips. “You've been given a new existence, a new purpose. To be my love. If you exist for nothing else, it's for me to love you and worship you for the rest of our days.”  
  
Xander smiles, just a little. “Now you're just being silly.”  
  
“No, no, there's nothing silly about it,” Charlie insists, swaying them. “I've been alone for a long time. Beyond the point of despairing of ever finding someone. I expected to finish out my life alone. But then I met you, and that thinking has changed. I went from being a confirmed, old bachelor to one of those gooey saps that's got marriage and family on his mind.”  
  
Xander leans back and looks at him, startled. “You want to . . . marry me?”  
  
“ _And_  to start a family with you.” Charlie nods. “I want  _everything_  with you.”  
  
Searching his eyes, Xander's small smile fades. “Why? After everything I've done and everything I am—“  
  
Charlie silences him with another kiss. “All you've ever done is the best you could do at the time. What you thought was right. And everything you are is  _wonderful_. I  _love_  everything about you. This mouth—“ Charlie steals another kiss. “This face.” Charlie presses a kiss to Xander's forehead. “This throat and these shoulders that've borne so much in their time.” Charlie's kisses wend their way down Xander's throat, to his left shoulder, then across to his right.  
  
“I love this  _heart_. . . .” Charlie rests his face over Xander's heartbeat before leaving a lingering kiss there. “Love it more than I can bear, in some moments.  
  
“I love this abdomen,” he says softly, kneeling and kissing the spot where Xander's belly button likely is, placing his hand on the flat plane, and imagining it curving, distended with his child. With  _their_  child. A little girl or boy with Weasley-red hair and Xander's eyes and smile. . . .  
  
Xander's hand settles on the top of Charlie's head, running through his hair. When Charlie looks up, Xander is smiling again. “I don't exactly have abs of steel, here, Charlie. Not like yours.”  
  
Charlie grins and kisses Xander's abdomen again. Then he lays a trail of kisses further south. “You can guess what else I love, can't you?”  
  
Xander chuckles. “Um, my knees?”  
  
“Well, yes. But I'm thinking a bit higher than that.” Charlie presses a kiss to Xander's fly before unzipping it slowly, so that Xander can stop him, if he chooses.  
  
(It's become very important to him that Xander feels free to say  _no_  to any of the proceedings between them. That he feels free to stop them whenever he chooses. That he knows that any decision he makes regarding their sex-life will be respected and honored.)  
  
Xander's hand cards through Charlie's hair gently, and he has the most wistful look on his face.  
  
“I want you more than I've ever wanted anything,” he admits. “And maybe it's the Tom Riddle in me, but I don't want to fight it, anymore. I  _can't_  fight how I feel. I need you too much to keep pretending I don't.”  
  
He looks down into Charlie's eyes and his hand drifts down to Charlie's mouth.  
  
“I love your mouth,” he says quietly. “Especially when it's saying  _I love you_.”  
  
Charlie kisses Xander's fingertips. They smell like roast beef and mustard, and that makes Charlie smile. “ _I love you_ , Xander Harris. In part and in whole.”  
  
Xander blinks, his eyes suspiciously shiny for a moment. Then he blinks again, and the shininess is gone, and Xander's tugging on the collar of Charlie's flannel shirt. “Can you just be kissing me, now?”  
  
Charlie's on his feet in half a heartbeat, pulling Xander into his arms and kissing him. Xander's arms wind around his neck and he moans into the kiss like a thirsting man into a goblet of water. His fingers scritch and scratch through the hair on the nape of Charlie's neck and Charlie's practically purring like a cat.  
  
Neither of them realizes they're backing toward the bed until the backs of Xander's knees hit it and they both go toppling onto it with twin  _oof_ s.  
  
“Serendipity,” Xander says, shrugging, and Charlie laughs. Then they're kissing again, slow and deep. Hands pluck at clothes, tugging at fabric and bumping into each other. Finally, Charlie breaks the kiss to take out his wand and mutter: “ _Divestio_.”  
  
“Oh!” Xander exclaims as they're both suddenly naked. And in full frontal contact. He wriggles around on the bed till Charlie's eyes roll back a little. “That's a handy spell.”  
  
“That, it is.” Charlie leans down to kiss Xander again, one hand cupping Xander's face, the other shoving his wand up under the bed's lone pillow.  
  
Xander's body is warm and willing underneath his own, and Charlie feels as if they haven't been together in years, instead of just a day and a half. “I need you, Xander . . . let me make love to you.”  
  
“Yes . . . please,” Xander murmurs into their kiss, bracketing Charlie's legs with his own and arching up into his body. Charlie swears and buries his face in Xander's throat, shifting his body till their cocks are lined up together. He grinds his body down against Xander's, taking Xander's hand and linking their fingers together.  
  
“I want everything with you, too, you know?” Xander says, squeezing Charlie's fingers. “I want us to always be together. I want to marry you and start a family with you . . . I want to grow old with you.”  
  
The backs of Charlie's own eyes sting. “I—I want that, too. I will do  _everything_  in my power to make sure that happens.” He sits up to look into Xander's eyes. “I promise you that.”  
  
Xander smiles and wraps his legs around Charlie's waist. “And I'll do the same. For what it's worth.”  
  
“It's worth everything,” Charlie says simply, and he kisses Xander's eyelids. “Absolutely everything.”  
  
Then they're kissing again, softly, lightly, but with no less ardor than before, bodies rocking together until they're both close to the edge.  
  
“Gonna come, soon,” Xander warns Charlie, laughing. “I've got, like, no stamina, right now. Like a freaking teenager, all of a sudden.”  
  
“Me, too,” Charlie grunts, getting to his knees and taking several calming breaths. Xander takes the opportunity to scramble back up toward the headboard, so his legs aren't hanging off the foot of the bed. But his eyes are glued to Charlie's body in a way that only makes Charlie harder.  
  
“You are so unbelievably  _hot_ ,” Xander says, shaking his head bemusedly. Charlie does some head-shaking of his own, looking his lover over with reverent eyes.  
  
“And  _you_  are unbelievably lovely,” he replies, crawling up the bed to kiss the tip of Xander's cock. Xander groans and spreads his legs wider.  
  
“C'mon, Weasley. I want you inside me when I come, rather than you getting hit in the face with it.” He laughs once more, and Charlie clamps a hand on Xander's cock, right at the base, before licking the tip repeatedly like a flesh-flavored lollipop. Xander groans again and sinks down to the pillow, throwing one arm over his eyes. “ _So_  not fair.”  
  
“I told you: I don't play fair.” Charlie grins and pushes Xander's legs further apart. He runs his index finger back behind Xander's bollocks, down past his perineum, to the twitching, anticipatory opening. He whispers the lube spell—it's a simple spell, and he's performed it enough, over the past week, that he doesn't need his wand to do it, anymore—before teasing the edge of Xander's entrance with his finger. When Xander starts chanting his name, interspersed with pleas for  _more_ , Charlie eases his way past the first muscle, barely meeting any resistance.  
  
As he pushes his finger deeper, Xander's muscles clamp down tighter and tighter on him, and the pleas have gotten much less coherent, consisting of Charlie's name, and a sound like  _GUH_.  
  
Charlie's careful to avoid Xander's prostate for now, and simply concentrates on preparing his lover as efficiently as possible. The second finger slides in as easily as the first, and he sets about stretching Xander as carefully as he can.  
  
By the time he deems Xander ready for a third finger, Xander's clenching his fingers in the sheets, and swearing and panting.  
  
“For  _fuck's_  sake, just  _fuck me_ , already!” he finally commands, sitting up to glare at Charlie, his hair wild around his flushed face and his lips still kiss-swollen.  
  
“But—” Charlie begins, turning rather red, himself. “I don't want to hurt you. You've . . . been hurt enough.”  
  
Xander's brow furrows. Then it clears and he looks chagrined. “You never have, Charlie. And you never could. C'mere, sweetheart,” he says, holding out his arms. And Charlie, after a brief hesitation, removes his fingers oh, so carefully, before flinging himself into Xander's arms and holding him tight.  
  
“Never lettin' you go,” he promises, and Xander strokes his hair, laying them both down, and wrapping his arms and legs around Charlie.  
  
“You'd  _better_  not. Not after all the sweet-talking  _you've_  done, Mister.”  
  
Charlie laughs a little and Xander kisses his hair, then tilts his face up to kiss his lips. Charlie sighs happily, running his hand up Xander's flank.  
  
“I love you so much,” he says, searching Xander's eyes. There's nothing there to see but love, love, love, shining back at him.  
  
 _And_ , Charlie decides contentedly,  _there need be nothing more_.  
  
“I love you, too, Charlie. But I swear, I'm about to  _explode_ ,” Xander whispers, hiking one leg up good and high. “C”mon. I'm  _ready_.”  
  
“But I only—two fingers—“ Charlie reminds him.  
  
“Trust me, Charlie.” Xander grins wryly. “I'm  _so_  ready to have your big beautiful cock inside me. I'll always be ready for  _that_.”  
  
Blushing, Charlie returns the grin. “Is that so?”  
  
“That's  _so_  so.”  
  
Without needing further prompting Charlie practically bends Xander in two—with Xander's help—so he's literally flat on his back, legs held up and out.  
  
Charlie takes a mental snapshot of Xander like this—it's always good to have wanking material stored up—then takes his own cock in hand, muttering the lube spell again. He coats himself quickly and lines himself up to Xander's pink, lube-shiny opening.  
  
As always, the initial thrust is like breaking into heaven, all tight heat and welcoming muscles around the tip of his cock. And as he pushes deeper, the sensation only intensifies, till he's sheathed in it—wrapped 'round in Xander's hot, clenching flesh, the rest of his body broken out in a sweat, his head hanging as he tries his hardest not to simply plow his lover hard and fast till he comes.  
  
He's bearing his body up by his arms, to either side of Xander's head, and Xander lets go of one of his legs—it's draped over Charlie's shoulder, now—and is caressing Charlie's quivering biceps.  
  
“It's okay, baby . . . it's  _more_  than okay,” he breathes, eyes shining up at Charlie. “Just breathe, and do whatever you need to do.”  
  
“Don't think I'm going to last very long,” Charlie apologizes. Xander smiles.  
  
“Me neither. If you so much as brush my prostate, I'm done for.”  
  
Charlie hangs his head again, chuckling hoarsely. “We're a fine pair, aren't we?”  
  
“The finest there ever was.” Xander clenches  _tight_  around Charlie, who groans and butterfly-kisses him. “Let's get this show on the road.”  
  
Charlie pulls most of the way out, only to plunge back in. Xander gasps, his eyes rolling back and the hand on Charlie's arm clamping down tight.  
  
“Right.  _There_.” Xander grits out, and Charlie nods, pulling out and thrusting in again  _hard_.  
  
“ _Yessss_ ,” Xander hisses, practically speaking Parseltongue, and Charlie shivers, kissing the hisses from Xander's lips as his body picks its own rhythm of thrusts and withdrawals and moves quite independently of his input.  
  
Xander's kiss-muffled hisses have turned into kiss-muffled shouts, in short order, and finally he stills, every muscle in his body bearing down on Charlie's cock, before warm wetness spills between their bodies.  
  
“Oh, bloody  _hell_ ,” Charlie exhales, kissing Xander's face all over. Then he's balancing his weight on one arm as he works his hand in between their bodies, to rest his hand on Xander's slippery abdomen, his fingers tracing unfamiliar, but purposeful patterns in sweat and come.  
  
“ _Esse fecundum. . . ferre puer meus, concepit, in amore. . . esse fecundum. . . ._ ,” he whispers, barely aware he  _is_  whispering something. His body has lost its rhythm and is merely seeking out Xander's warmth, only to leave it, just to have the sensation of finding it again, each time trying to get a little deeper than the previous time. Until he, too, stills, his entire body on fire as he comes so hot and hard it hurts. “ _Esse fecundum_  . . . oh,  _Xander_  . . .  _esse fecundum in amore_. . . .”  
  
Xander's moaning beneath him, eyes squinched tight shut, his body arched toward Charlie's and . . . he seems to be . . .  _glowing_. There's a soft, white radiance surrounding him, at least up to the point that Charlie can't keep his eyes open, anymore, there is.  
  
It feels as if he comes forever—as if he's giving Xander everything he has: heart, mind, soul, life-force, magic,  _everything_.  
  
Until, emptied and exhausted, he collapses on top of Xander.  
  
Except for his own heavy panting, the house is preternaturally quiet. But then,  _this_  house is always preternaturally quiet.  
  
“Love,” Charlie groans softly, pulling out and somehow finding the strength to roll off of Xander and onto his back, where he continues to pant and stares at the explosions on the backs of his eyelids. “Oh,  _love_.”  
  
He repeats it, because there are simply no other words to say that encompass all that he wants to say.  
  
Time passes in silence, but for the sounds of Xander's even breathing and Charlie's still more ragged breathing. The great clock in the hall chimes six, and Charlie finally opens his eyes and rolls his head over so he's looking at Xander.  
  
Half hanging off the rather narrow bed, Xander is splayed like a starfish, one arm and leg flung over Charlie. His head is inclined toward Charlie's, his hair-covered face solemn as an alabaster saint, in its repose.  
  
Charlie reaches out and brushes the hair back out of Xander's face, and Xander moans softly in his sleep, dragging his other half up onto the bed and snuggling close to Charlie. He doesn't seem obliged to wake up any time soon.  
  
“ _Accio_  blanket,” Charlie whispers, feeling under the pillow and brushing the tip of his wand. A few seconds later, he and Xander are covered in what looks like a homemade, Molly Weasley blanket.  
  
Puzzled, but not willing to look a gift blanket in the mouth—perhaps it was a leftover from when the Order was based here—Charlie arranges the blanket around Xander and himself. Pulls Xander into his arms and drops off into a dreamless sleep.


	15. The Riddle of Riddle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry comes by with news, then it's off to the Ministry, yet again, where Xander learns the truth behind his birth, and gets some other news.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I'm neither the Joss, nor the J.K.

“Hey—wake up.”  
  
Charlie snorts and snuffles, burying his face in the crook of Xander's neck and holds Xander tighter. He's more than prepared to ignore the voice trying to awake him—except that it starts swearing and shaking his arm. Then poking him with what feels like a wand.  
  
“C'mon, Charlie, don't make me have to use my outdoor voice.”  
  
Snorting again, this time with sleepy laughter, Charlie opens his eyes and rolls a little toward the voice. “Harry?” He squints in the lamp-light, and can make out those familiar glasses and wild fringe that never seems to cover the scar—not completely.  
  
“None other than . . . why are you and Xander—congratulations on the apparent reconciliation, by the way—cozied up in Regulus Black's room? Especially when the fourth floor is off-limits till I officially show you around?”  
  
“Erm,” Charlie, looks around at Xander, who's still sounds asleep, just a lump under the blanket, except for the very top of his head and the place where Charlie had pressed his face. “Ah, that is, we, got bored, and wound up . . . here.”  
  
“'Bored'?” Harry's eyebrows shoot up above his eyes which, from this angle, are mere circles of reflected light. “You know this house's reputation and you went wandering around anyway because you were  _bored_?”  
  
“Keep it down, Harry. And we didn't  _go wandering_. We just came straight up here.”  
  
Now, Harry's frowning. “Why up here?”  
  
“Er.” Charlie sighs. “Dunno. We just started climbing stairs and wound up on the fourth floor.”  
  
Harry  _hmphs_  and puts his hands on his narrow hips. “Well, you're lucky your travels brought you here instead of other places. It just so happens  _this_  floor is clear. I sleep right next door.”  
  
In Sirius Black's old room.  
  
 _And that's not mental at all_ , Charlie thinks, in a voice that sounds a lot like Ron's. Then he shakes his head to clear the last of the grogginess. “Sorry. Won't let it happen again.”  
  
“Well. You'll be getting the tour soon enough, and then it won't matter, I suppose.” Harry still sounds put-out. Perhaps because someone else is in his territory. Or perhaps because Harry Potter is  _always_  put-out, nowadays. “Anyway, that's not important. What's important is, we've come across some information in Xander's early memories that's . . . pretty important. Mad-Eye thinks Xander should be made aware of it. Should be shown what's in the pensieve.”  
  
 _Now_  Charlie's all the way awake, sitting up and feeling under the pillow—which Xander has hogged—for his wand. “Give us a few minutes and we'll be ready to go,” he tells Harry, who nods briskly.  
  
“I'll be waiting at the third floor landing. Don't dally.”   
  
Then Harry's gone on noiseless feet.  
  
Charlie retrieves his wand and slides his other hand under the covers, and down Xander's arm. He leans over and kisses the back of Xander's head. “Love? Time to wake up.”  
  
Xander makes a whiny little moaning noise. “Just lemme sleep a little while longer. . . .”  
  
“I would, if I could, love, but . . . well, Harry says it's important that we go down to the Ministry with him.” Charlie sighs when Xander's formerly relaxed body tenses up. “ _That_  woke you up.”  
  
“No shit.” Xander stretches and rolls over so that he's facing Charlie. He looks  _exhausted_ : pale, circles forming around his reddened eyes. “What time is it?”  
  
“Dunno. But it must be late.  _I_  feel like I had a full night's sleep. Almost,” Charlie adds, yawning. Xander smiles, and as lovely as that smile is, it makes him look even more weary than he already does.  
  
“Well, let's not leave Harry waiting, I suppose,” he says, leaning in to kiss Charlie quickly, before rolling onto his other side to get out of bed. Charlie watches wistfully, just because he likes the view, as Xander stretches again.  
  
“ _Accio_  Xander's clothes.” He flicks his wand, and Xander's clothes float up off the the floor and to the bed. Xander watches them do so bemusedly.  
  
“That will  _never_  stop being cool.” He grins and Charlie laughs.  
  
“Just you wait till you're Apparating.”  
  
“Ugh, no, thanks!” Xander puts a hand on his abdomen, shaking his head. “Just the thought of having to do that again is making me nauseas. And kinda dizzy. . . .” Xander says, frowning, his other hand going to his head as he turns and sits heavily on the bed. “Yeesh, I feel craptastic. My stomach feels like it's rearranging my innards—a kidney here, a liver there— _mazel tov_!” He laughs weakly. “God, and if this room were spinning any faster. . . .”  
  
Frowning, himself, Charlie gets out of bed and goes around to kneel at Xander's feet. Xander's hand, when Charlie takes it, is clammy and shaking minutely. Charlie places the back of his other hand on Xander's forehead and feels for a fever.  
  
Nothing. In fact, Xander's forehead is as clammy as his hand.  
  
“Perhaps we need to pay St. Mungo's another visit,” Charlie murmurs, worried, but Xander pastes on a smile that looks about as real as a purple galleon. “Might be you have a cold.”  
  
“No, no, I'm fine, just—probably shaky from missing so many meals.” Xander catches Charlie's fever-seeking hand in his own and kisses it. “I'm fine.”  
  
“You might have a bug or something.” Charlie stands up, pulling Xander with him. Xander goes, but slowly, his eyes squeezed shut and teeth gritted.  
  
“ _Accio_  wand,” Charlie says, and when he's got it, he taps it against the small of Xander's back. “ _Vestus Raimentum_.  
  
Suddenly dressed, Xander looks down at himself, then back up, grinning. “You'd be, like, the best butler, ever.”  
  
Charlie smiles a little and sits Xander back down. “Hmm, would I get to call you 'Master Xander'?” he asks, and Xander chuckles.  
  
“I'd insist,” he replies. “Now, vestus raimentum  _yourself_ , before I ravish you.”  
  


*

  
  
After Apparating from one dank alley to another, this time, Xander  _does_  throw up. And nearly keels over face first in the puddle of puke he's made, but for Charlie's and Harry's hands on his arms, holding him up.  
  
“You alright, mate?” Harry asks as they pull Xander back upright. Xander goes miserably, letting Charlie fold him into his arms. He tries to hold himself as still as possible, so Charlie can't tell he's shaking.  
  
“Never better. Why do you ask?” Xander grits out, clutching his stomach as a huge cramp rolls through it like a tsunami of pain.  _What was in those roast beef sandwiches?_  he thinks, more than mildly alarmed.  
  
Meanwhile, Harry and Charlie are staring at him worriedly.  
  
“I think he might have a touch of the flu,” Charlie says softly, putting his warm—oh, so warm—hand to Xander's forehead again, for what must be the third time since they woke up.  
  
Harry  _hmms_. “Actually, you  _don't_  look so good. . . .”  
  
“You silver-tongued devil, you.” Xander sighs, straightening up. “Let's just get this all over with so I can go back to sleep . . . uh . . . is anyone gonna recognize me or something? In the Ministry?”  
  
“This late at night, there's no one at the Ministry but aurors and janitors, and they both know how to keep their mouths shut,” Harry says dismissively, marching toward the entryway of the alley. Xander and Charlie share a glance, shrug, and follow him. Charlie with an eye to catching Xander should he go keeling over again, Xander with an eye toward keeping his guts where they belong: on the inside.  
  


*

  
  
After being dragged down through the Ministry for forever, Harry finally brings Xander and Charlie to a large room filled with what looks like big stone basins on pedestals.  
  
Many of the basins have someone standing over them—someone in grey and black robes usually, what Xander's come to recognize as auror colors.  
  
“Where are we?” he asks quietly, his hand leaving his stomach to feel for Charlie's. When Charlie's hand closes around his own, Xander heaves a quiet sigh of relief.  
  
“This is where we keep the official pensieves that the aurors and the Ministry uses,” Harry says, glancing around as if searching for someone. Then he smiles and strides across the large space toward Mad-Eye Moody, Auror Langley, and Kingsley Shacklebolt.  
  
“Potter—you're just in time. Langley has the pensieve ready to go and, ah, Kingsley will be coming with us on this little trip down memory lane,” Mad-Eye says, his good eye on Harry, his mad eye on Xander.  
  
Then,  _both_  eyes are on Xander, widening with what might very well be . . . surprise. He squints the good eye till it's practically closed, and the mad eye roves up and down Xander, pausing at stomach-level for long moments, till Xander's rather uncomfortable.  
  
 _Holy crap, can he_ see _my food poisoning—or whatever it is?_  he wonders, the hand not being held by Charlie coming up to rest on his stomach. Mad-Eye grunts and meets Xander's gaze.  
  
“Well. You two  _certainly_  didn't waste any time,” he says tersely, then turns to Auror Langley before Xander can ask what he means. “Alright, we're all here. Note the time we went under and the time we come back.”  
  
“Will do, sir.” Langley says, smiling. “Whenever you're ready.”  
  
Mad-Eye beckons Harry, Charlie, and Xander closer. “C'mon, you three. Potter, at least, is no stranger to pensieves.”  
  
Harry nods. “That's right. Xander, Charlie, you just . . . lean over the bowl and peer into the depths. Let your mind relax. The pensieve will handle the rest.”  
  
Xander looks at Charlie. “And this is safe? Walking through my memories like this?”  
  
“Perfectly safe,” Charlie promises, leaning in to kiss Xander's forehead and squeezing his hand. “Nothing you see will be able to touch you or hurt you. No one in the memories will be able to see you.”  
  
“He's absolutely right, Xander,” Harry says, smiling briefly. “Whatever you see, will have already happened. There'll be no changing it and it can't  _change you_  in any way.”  
  
“That remains to be seen,” Xander mutters, stepping up to the basin. He leans warily over it and looks into silvery-white depths, and sees . . . nothing. Lets his mind relax, inasmuch as it's able, and still sees . . . nothing.  
  
 _Hey—this thing's broken,_  he's about to say, when all of a suddenly the world is nothing but silvery-white light, and Xander's on an invisible roller-coaster ride, the only reminder of the world he'd just left being Charlie Weasley, still holding his hand.  
  


*

  
  
The first thing Xander notices about the scene he finds himself in is . . . himself.  
  
Or rather,  _Tom Riddle_ , going by the wizarding attire and the wand clenched in Riddle's fist. He's pacing back and forth in front of a roaring fireplace, clearly agitated. Just then a door near where Mad-Eye and Kingsley are standing opens and a short, bespectacled, older man with a receding hairline, and a bushy auburn beard and mustache enters the room. His robes are a dusty-looking black and he's holding a carefully-wrapped bundle in one arm.  
  
Behind him, timid as a mouse, is a small young man, no older than thirteen, with glasses and auburn hair, and dusty-looking  _grey_  robes. He's staring at Riddle as if he's got two heads.  
  
At their entry, Riddle stops pacing and approaches the newcomers almost like a supplicant, his face worried and intent.  
  
“The child?” he asks in Xander's voice, version 1-point-Brit. “Is it. . . ?”  
  
“Yes, yes, the child is healthy,” the other answers in a thick accent that could be Romanian— _Now wouldn't_ that _be a weird coincidence?_ —or maybe something else. He offers the bundle to Riddle, who suddenly looks horrified.  
  
“I—I—” Riddle stammers, putting both hands behind his back and mustering up a glare that looks like it wants to be a triumphant grin. “And Quentin . . . he'll also be fine.”  
  
The older man doesn't answer at first, simply hands the bundle to the young man, who takes it carefully and smiles down at it.  
  
“I . . . was unable to save the other father. I am . . . sorry.” The older man adjusts his glasses and takes a breath, looking everywhere but at Riddle's face . . . which is almost hideous in its shock and dismay. “It was either the child or the father, at the end, and both you and he specified that the child be saved, if it came to that—“  
  
“Yes, yes, I remember what we specified, Herr Krakauer,” Riddle grits out, his pale face suddenly mask-like with holding back what appears to be a great and terrible rage. He turns away from the pair, one hand going to his mouth as he regards the fire. Xander can't see his face, can't imagine what expression is on it, now. He's still trying to figure out all this “other father” business and what that has to do with the birth of the bundle that kid is holding.  
  
Said bundle has begun to squirm and cry.  
  
“That'd be you, of course,” Mad-Eye says gruffly, pointing at the bundle and looking at Xander. Xander's mouth drops open.  
  
“ _Me_?” he asks numbly, shocked. Charlie's arm slides around his waist. “I'm—that's—but—Riddle's all grown up! How can I be his twin or whatever if he's a grown up and I'm just being born?”  
  
Mad-Eye grunts. “That bit's going to take some explaining. For now, what you need to know is, that child  _is_  you, and—”  
  
“And what's all this talk about the 'other father'?” Xander demands.  
  
Mad-Eye, Harry, and Kingsley exchange glances then, as if coming to silent decision, leave Harry to do the explaining.  
  
“You see, Xander, when two wizards love each other—“ Harry begins almost delicately. For Harry, anyway. And Xander interrupts him with a laugh.  
  
“Ha-ha, very funny,” he says sarcastically. Harry's eyebrows shoot up.  
  
“When two wizards love each other,” he repeats icily, “much as you and Charlie do, and they decide that they want to have children, they sometimes choose to use alternative means to have those children.”  
  
Xander nods impatiently. “You mean like a surrogate mother, or adoption?”  
  
“No, I mean like one of the wizards can allow his partner to impregnate him, thus creating a child of their bodies, and with both their magical signatures."  
  
Xander's mouth drops open again. “Get the fuck out,” he breathes. Harry snorts.  
  
“It's all true. In wizarding society, men can bear and/or carry children. From the sound of things, Riddle chose his male companion to carry you.” Harry pauses. “Unforunately, male pregnancies can be . . . tough on the father doing the carrying, and the birth  _especially_  so. The child has to be Apparated out, for obvious reasons, but doing so runs the risk of the wizard suffering internal hemorrhaging, resulting from the—”  
  
“Gah! I get it, I get it!” Xander covers his ears for a moment. “Okay, men can carry babies in the wizarding world—gotcha. But if this Merope Gaunt is my biological mother, how come Riddle's . . .  _male companion_  carried me, and apparently died giving birth to me?”  
  
Harry shrugs. “Quentin Oliver was the surrogate, not an actual parent. The child— _you_ —were implanted in him by magical means. Just as you were no doubt created by magical means.”  
  
Xander sighs, leaning into Charlie, his head spinning both literally and figuratively. Charlie's chin rests atop his head. “Lemme guess: dark magic?”  
  
Harry comes over to Xander and puts a hand on his arm. “Not necessarily dark. But old.  _Very_ old. Magic that's fueled by will and desire. Whatever else he wanted, Tom Riddle wanted  _you_  to be born very badly. Badly enough that he was willing to sacrifice the life of his lover to get you here, because he apparently trusted no one else in his circle to carry you. Not even that mad bitch, Bellatrix Lestrange.” Harry shakes his head. “Frankly, we're still reeling over this . . . companion of Riddle's. No one in Riddle's circle that we've ever spoken to made any mention of him, or to the fact that Riddle had ever taken a lover.”  
  
Xander frowns. “Then how do you  _know_  they were lov—“  
  
“ _Avada Kedavra_!” The thus far silently grieving Riddle suddenly hisses, whirling on Herr Krakauer. And in a flash of eldritch green light, the man is laying on the floor, stiff as a board.  
  
“Oh . . . oh, my  _God_ ,” Xander exhales, covering his mouth much the way Riddle had before. He wants to turn away, but can't. He can only be thankful for Charlie's arms around him.  
  
Riddle, meanwhile, is still standing over the body, breathing hard, his face nearly purple with rage. His wand is still pointed at the body and there are tears running down his face.  
  
Unnoticed, the boy holding the bundle backs into the other room and shuts the door quietly. . . .  
  
And suddenly, the scene changes—to a bedroom, pin-neat, but for the area immediately around the bed. In the bed, itself is another dead body.  
  
The boy pauses only a moment to look at it—it's naked, but the lower half of it is covered with a blue sheet. Still-damp ash-blond hair covers a pale face, but Xander can still make out green eyes—the color of spring grass—and fine, aristocratic features.  
  
“Is that—“  
  
“Quentin Oliver,” Harry says, nodding. “We were able to find some information on him—not much. The Oliver family—old money  _and_  old magic—basically kept him hidden away for most of his life because he was a Squib. Then, in 1975, he disappeared so completely, he was never heard from again. We can only surmise that's when he met Riddle. The next five years are a blank that we can't yet fill in.”  
  
In the scene, the boy has placed the bundle—the baby— _me_ , Xander thinks, irritated with himself—down on the night table and is opening the window carefully. It squeaks, but only a little. When it's open wide enough, the boy hesitates and looks back at the baby, then at the body in the bed. Then back at the window.  
  
Finally, he goes back for the baby—and for something else on the night table. A gilt-framed photo—and a familiar one, at that. In it, Riddle is smiling and winking at the camera. Or the person behind it.  
  
The boy tucks it, frame and all, into the baby's blanket, then hurries back to the window.  
  
It takes some doing, getting out with only one free hand, but he does it. The baby has just started to cry again. He's probably hungry.  
  
The scene whirls around again in that way that means its about to change, but Mad-Eye waves his wand, and suddenly Xander's leaning over the basin once more, his hand still in Charlie's. His other hand is clenched on his stomach, which is roiling worse than ever.  
  
He straightens up as a fresh wave of cramps and nausea assaults him, and turns to Harry, who's adjusting his glasses and still staring broodily into the pensieve.  
  
“Nothing but more riddles,” he mutters, and Xander couldn't agree more.  
  
Then his stomach's in complete revolt. “Can someone point me to the nearest toilet? I'm about to be sick,” he says, more calmly than he expects. Mad-Eye merely stares at him—at his stomach—and Harry's still enrapt in the pensieve.  
  
It's Kingsley Shacklebolt who finaly offers to show him the way. Xander barely makes it to the stall in time, and it's only after he's purged his stomach of everything it'd ever had in it that he realizes Charlie's been holding his hair back.  
  


*

  
  
Once in Moody's cramped office, all of them sitting in transfigured chairs, knees bumping into someone or something, Moody breaks out the Ogden's Old and six tumblers. Charlie takes a tumblerful gladly.  
  
“Oh . . . no, thanks,” Xander says absently, one hand on his stomach, the other in Charlie's. He's staring at the evening edition of the  _Prophet_  on Moody's desk. The front page article features another photo related to Riddle. It's of his graduating class at Hogwarts. Every teen in the photo is abuzz and a flutter, quite unable to be bothered to face the camera for long enough to be photographed clearly. Except for one student, standing a little off to the left of center, smirking his Salazar Slytherin-smirk at the world.  
  
 _ **A Riddle From Beyond the Grave?**_  the headline reads, with a byline of:  _Will the true extent of Riddle's legacy finally disclose itself?_  
  
“Hey,” Charlie says, squezing Xander's hand, and Xander tears his gaze away from the photo. Charlie smiles. “It'll be okay, love.”  
  
Xander tries gamely to return the smile. “Keep saying that, and maybe I'll believe it, in a year, or two.”  
  
Moody clears his throat and knocks back his firewhisky in one great swallow that makes even Charlie—no stranger to firewhisky—wince and rub his throat.  
  
“Now,” he says shortly. “From what we've seen, so far, the boy who was assisting the Medi-wizard, Herr Krakauer, managed to make his way, without being caught by Riddle's followers, from somewhere in Poland—we believe near Warsaw—to the States. It took him months of hand-to-mouth living and doing things no one should have to do, let alone a child, but he got away. We believe this was, partially, because Riddle didn't chase after him, immediately. He may have been too busy with other . . . projects, but it's more likely he was too aggrieved at the death of Quentin Oliver to start an effective pursuit of boy and babe.” Moody pauses to pour himself another tumblerful. “It is believed that after the loss of the babe, that Riddle began working in earnest on his horcrux scheme. Which further leads us to theorize that—“ he glances at Potter, who shrugs. “That you, Harris, were initially fashioned to be a horcrux.”  
  
Xander shakes his head, smiling a little. “Pretend I'm new to the wizarding world, and please explain what a horcrux is,” he says calmly. It's that calm that has Charlie worried. Xander's been taking this all—for Xander, anyway—far too calmly. More calmly than Charlie would have, in his place.  
  
“A horcrux is, to put it simply, a vessel for containing a soul, or part of a soul. So that even if the body dies, the soul can be . . . kept on this plane. Even re-incarnated,” Kingsley says quietly, as though just speaking of horcruxes is enough to conjure one. “It's  _very_  dark magic.”  
  
Looking as if he suddenly understands, Xander nods. “Okay. Like an Orb of Thessula. I get it.”  
  
Moody looks startled and his mad eyes whirling. “You know about those? They're illegal in forty countries. Even to speak of them is run the risk of being investigated by aurors!”  
  
Xander shrugs. “Must not be illegal in the good ol' US of A. I've seen one in use. Hell, I think my ex-fiancee did a brisk business in them, in her magic store.” He shrugs again. Moody looks like he's about to have an apoplectic fit.  
  
“Leaving that aside, for now,” Kingsley Shacklebolt says firmly, putting a steadying hand on Moody's arm. “The horcrux theory is only one theory.  _My theory_  is a simpler one: Riddle intended to create the seven horcruxes, and keep you, Xander, hidden away somewhere, till Riddle was otherwise wounded or killed—a thing he seemed to anticipate happening—and then, well . . . displace your soul from  _your_  body, and collect his soul from the horcruxes and have it transferred into your body.”  
  
Xander goes even paler. “But in either case . . . what would've happened to  _me_? To  _my_  soul?”  
  
“What, indeed,” Moody says sharply. “Your soul would likely have been left to wander the earth or move on to the next life.”  
  
His mouth pursing, Xander snorts, looking at the newspaper again. “What a swell guy you were, Tommy . . . so I  _am_  a clone of him, right? A carbon copy?”  
  
Moody clears his throat. “There are spells—mostly old magic, that deal with creating copies of one's self, yes. Some are dark magic, others are not. We've no way to tell which spell was used to create  _you_ , only that from creation, to birth, you were carried by Quentin Oliver.”  
  
Charlie's brow furrows and he shakes his head. “But how did Xander end up being raised by muggles? If this boy—do you even know who he was?—was caring for him, for months, you say, how—?”  
  
“He  _Obliviated_  a young couple in a place called Oxnard, California, into thinking they'd had a child out of wedlock. And that they had to leave Oxnard because of the shame. We don't know why he chose them.” Moody says, holding up a hand before Charlie can ask another  _why_. “Nothing in Xander's memories tells us  _why_ , only that he  _did_  do these things.  
  
“After the new memories took and the couple seemed to accept the child as their own . . . more or less . . . the boy disappears from the picture.”  
  
“And speaking of picture, the one that the boy took from Riddle's cottage is the same one that appeared on the front page of the  _Prophet_ , yesterday morning. Xander was right, it appears: that picture didn't come from any photo library of any newspaper. It came fom Quentin Oliver.” Harry leans back in his chair and sips his firewhisky. “The question becomes,  _how_  did it make it's way to the front page of the  _Prophet_? And  _who_  was able to get his hands on that illustration of Xander?”  
  
“And  _why_  were they so eager to see this 'story' break?” Kingsley asks softly. “Money? Or some sort of . . . scheme?”  
  
No one, it seems, has an answer for that. Except for Xander, who's rubbing his stomach, they all sip their firewhisky in silence.  
  
Finally, Xander breaks the silence. “Who named me?” he asks quietly, almost desperately. Moody blinks, surprised.  
  
“The boy did. He called you  _Aleksander_  consistently over the months he traveled with you, and apparently the name stuck, because your adoptive parents kept it,” he adds, and Xander suddenly looks away with a low groan and a grimace.  
  
“Xand?” Charlie says solicitously. Xander smiles wanly, rubbing his stomach.  
  
“Sorry. I think I might have a mild case of food poisoning from a rogue roast beef sandwich.”  
  
Charlie's immediately attentive. “Food poisoning? And you're just now mentioning that's what you think it is?” he chides, reaching out to caress Xander's understandably pale face. “There's a Medi-witch on the premises, I believe. We can get you looked over, right now. They can give you a potion that'll cure you in no time at all.” He looks at Moody for confirmation. Moody snorts.  
  
“Weasley, if  _he's_  got food poisoning,  _I'm_  a three-tailed crup!” He laughs, gravelly and amused. “Harris, what's ailing you isn't a bad bloody sandwich. It's the fact that your body's is trying its damnedest to accommodate a womb!”  
  
This time, Charlie's the one who's mouth drops open. But Xander merely blinks. “I'm sorry, accommodate a  _what_?”  
  
“No, Harris, accommodate a  _womb_.” Off Xander's still blank look and Charlie's gobsmacked one, Moody rolls his eyes—the mad one keeps on going round and round even after the normal one's stopped. “For the child you two went to the trouble of creating?”  
  
Xander's shaking his head. “Hey, look, it's great that wizards can carry babies, and all, but I think you're seriously mistaken.  _I_  am not carrying a baby—“  
  
“Well, not  _yet_ , but if that womb finishes forming unimpeded, you will be.” Moody's mad eye focuses on Xander's stomach. “And from the looks of things, it'll be finished quite soon.”  
  
Xander laughs, patting his stomach. “Yuh-huh. Sure, it will. Charlie, can you  _believe_  this guy? Charlie?”  
  
But Charlie's only half there. The other half of his mind is hearkening back to last night. He remembers very clearly he and Xander making love in Regulus Black's narrow bed. He remembers Xander arching up against him, coming, and moaning as he did. More importantly, he remembers himself saying . . .  _something_ , and tracing patterns on Xander's abdomen in sweat and come. Patterns that'd felt, even at the time, almost . . .  _rune_ -like.  
  
He  _remembers_  coming, himself, so hard, it felt like he might die when it was over. That he'd given Xander everything he had, mind, body, soul, magic . . . even  _life-force_ , he'd thought at the time.  
  
“ _Esse fecundum . . . something-something concepit amore—_ ” Charlie murmurs. He's quite certain that's part of what he said. It has the general ring of a spell, but it's not constructed like any spell he's ever heard. Not even the silly ones Fred and George used to make up and practice on Scabbers.  
  
Moody huffs. “That's not any modern fertility spell, as far as  _I_  know, but that'd do it, if there were enough . . . will and intent behind it. Enough  _desire_.”  
  
Charlie's the one shaking his head, now. “But—we—doesn't there have to be a Medi-witch present, to perform that sort of spell?”  _Surely a child can't just be_ wished and wanted _into existence. . . ._  
  
Huffing again, Moody cracks a smile that's at least as intimidating as his regular expression. “Considering what two people  _usually_  have to do to conceive a child, most fertility spells only require the, er, presence of the parents-to-be. The Medi-witch comes into play before, to make sure they know the risks and can actually complete the spell correctly, and after, to make sure everything's gone according to plan.” He sighs. “So, I suppose you'll be needing to see the Medi-witch, now, to make sure the spell takes completely?”  
  
Charlie nods absently, still trying for the life of him to remember the whole spell—if spell it was—that he'd performed. But he discovers one's best moments of recall are  _not_  when one is coming harder than one ever has before in one's life. “Yes, please. We have to make sure. . . .”  
  
 _That Xander's pregnant? That he's_ not _? That this isn't all some kind of strange mix-up? Merlin!_  
  
“ _Excuse me_ ,” Xander declares, holding up his hands, still laughing, but it's not a very mirthful laugh. It's rather shrill and hyena-like. “But of all of us here, I think  _I'd_  be the one to know if I was pregnant, please and thank you, and I'm  _not_! Christ!”  
  
Harry frowns. “Well, have you ever  _been_  pregnant before?”  
  
“No, but—“ Xander blushes, and crosses his arms. “But I've had  _food poisoning before_ , and  _this_ is what it feels like. End of story.”  
  
Moody snorts. “Well, then, hadn't you better see a Medi-witch about your . . .  _food poisoning_ , Harris? Before it gets any worse?”  
  
Still blushing, Xander stands up, one hand still on his stomach, his dignity drawn around him like a cloak. “That's a fine idea, Auror Moody. I believe I will. Charlie—c'mon. We're going to see the Medi-witch.”  
  
“Not without an escort.” Harry jumps up, too, staring speculatively at Xander's stomach as if he expects a child to immediately appear. Noticing this, Xander's quick to cover his stomach with both hands and glare at Harry.  
  
“ _Esse fecundum . . . something_. . . .” Charlie mutters, standing up, as well. His legs feel rubbery and strange, and his vision is suddenly narrowing like a tunnel.  
  
Xander rolls his eyes. “Yeah, babe—isn't that what you said last night when we were—alone together?” he finishes delicately. Then he frowns. “Hey, what's that  _mean_ , anyway?”  
  
“ _I'm pretty sure it's means you're about to be pregnant,_ ” Charlie says—or means to say. Instead, he laughs and swoons, and the world goes gently dark for a little while.  
  



	16. The Family Way

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Xander gets a diagnosis. He asks for a second opinion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: Just borrowing, thanks.

“The Medi-witch on duty is quite good. We can pop in quick for some, er, Pepper-up on the way home,” Harry says nonchalantly. As if he isn't . . . floating Charlie's unconscious body down the hallway.  
  
Xander can't stop goggling. Even his nausea and dizziness is forgotten for sheer wonder. He's only half paying attention to what Harry says. “Uh—Pepper- _what_?”  
  
Harry flicks his wand as they approach a turn. Stately as a cruise ship, Charlie's body turns without a wobble. “No, mate, Pepper- _up_. It's a cure for things like the common cold, and it'll even help with the food poisoning, if that's what you've got.”  
  
“Of  _course,_  that's what I've got! Why wouldn't that be what I've got?” Xander demands, crossing his arms. Harry glances at him, his lips twitching.  
  
“No reason, at all. Except that I've never known Kreacher, or any house elf to serve food that was less than immaculate.”  
  
“Yeah? Well, there's a first time for everything. I really think there was something off about those sandwiches,” Xander mutters as what feels like his spleen bench-presses his stomach.  
  
Sooner, rather than later, thankfully, they're at the medical station. The young Medi-witch on duty directs Harry to levitate Charlie to one of the several beds in the small, empty ward.  
  
“Did he hit his head, or anything?” she asks, blinking large dark eyes surrounded by dark make-up. She's dressed in all black, but for her green robes. Her hair is a raven-y sort of purple-black that's got to be died.  
  
 _Even in the wizarding world, Goth exists. Stellar_ , Xander thinks with a sigh. “No, he didn't hit his head, he just . . . fainted.”  
  
She blinks again. “And what prompted him to do so?”  
  
Harry starts to answer, and Xander elbows him silent. “Oh, just some news. Personal news.  _Not-true_  news, that was, I suppose, a shock to the system. He just went down like a ton of bricks.”  
  
The Medi-witch  _hmms_ , just like Harry had not too long ago, tapping her chin with the tip of her wand. “Well, in that case, the best thing for him would be to sleep it off. He can do so right here. You're welcome to wait with him, of course.”  
  
Xander grins sheepishly. “That's the thing, I'm here because I've been experiencing some . . . symptoms of my own. Stomach ache, vomiting, nausea, dizziness, unsteadiness,” he adds off her prompting look. Her mouth purses and she motions for Xander and Harry to follow her to a small, but neat desk in the corner of the ward. With a glance back at Charlie, Xander goes, Harry on his heels.  
  
When they get to the desk, the Medi-witch sits behind it, waving at the two chairs on the other side. Xander and Harry sit—Xander wincing and putting his hand on his stomach again. The Medi-witch frowns.  
  
“And how long have you had these symptoms?”  
  
“Um, since I woke up, so I guess about an three hours? Maybe less? I have no idea what time it is.” He shrugs. She leans back in her chair, like Medi-witch Benza had . . . except that she puts her feet—clad in black and white Nikes—up on her relatively uncluttered desk.  
  
“And what was the last thing you did before you fell asleep?”  
  
“Uh . . . the  _very_  last thing?” Xander blushes and looks everywhere but at the Medi-witch. “Just, uh, ate a couple of roast beef sandwiches, had sex, then fell asleep.”  
  
The Medi-witch's eyebrows shoot up.  
  
“What kind of roast beef sandwiches?” she asks, rather wistfully, actually licking her lips. Then she blushes, herself, and sighs. “By which I mean—it  _is_  possible you've got a case of mild food poisoning if the roast beef wasn't cooked properly . . . did you prepare the food or take-away?”  
  
“Uh—a house elf made it.”  
  
“ _Hmm_.” She taps her lips with her wand. “There goes the food poisoning theory, then. A house elf would sooner kill him or herself than serve his master tainted food. But,” she swings her feet to the floor and stands up, pointing her wand at Xander, “let's get a look at you internally, just to be sure. C'mon, stand up.”  
  
She gestures with her wand for Xander to stand and he does, grateful when the room only spins a little and he  _doesn't_  throw up on her desk.  
  
“ _Internum visum_ , she says, waving the wand at Xander's midsection, then flicking it toward the blank, beige wall of the ward.  
  
And there, larger than life, Xander gets a view of nothing he ever saw in science class.  
  
No, instead of the neat, tidy organs all in their discreet places, doing their discreet jobs of keeping Xander alive, Xander's organs seem to be . . .  _squirming_  around, twitching in all sorts of entertaining ways, as if making room for something. Nudging each other like a bunch of busy walkers at rush hour.  
  
Xander's best guess would be to make room for the strange . . .  _impossible_  growth that's forming just above his bladder.  
  
“Well, fuck me, Freddie,” Xander breathes, and the Medi-witch snorts.  
  
“Well, apparently  _someone_  has been, Mr. Harris.” The Medi-witch gestures with her wand at the growth. “Because if I don't miss my guess,  _that_ , right there, is a mostly-formed uterus. Why didn't you inform me you'd had a fertility spell performed on you?”  
  
Xander sits heavily in his chair, staring at the wall, his mouth dropped open.  
  
“Because I didn't . . . I didn't  _know_  I had a fertility spell performed on me,” he says through numb lips. “I mean . . . this isn't happening, right? I can't have a . . . a . . .  _one of those_  forming inside of me, right? That's impossible!”  
  
“Actually, it's  _quite_  possible.” The Medi-witch smiles kindly. “You're going to be a father! Congratulations!”  
  
Xander shakes his head, still gazing at the picture on the wall. “But . . . wouldn't I have to take some sort of potion or something, first?”  
  
“In most cases, yes. But in some of the more, shall we say . . . spontaneous acts of fertilization, all that's necessary is the will and desire for a child. Even the spell, itself, is really just a focus for the magic, itself. It's the magic that does the heavy lifting, as it were.” The Medi-witch says dismissively. “And I'm assuming, since you didn't know that a fertility spell  _had_  been performed on you, that this was, indeed, a spontaneous act of magic?”  
  
“I . . . I guess. . . .” Xander's reeling. The room is spinning, and the nausea's worse than ever. “Charlie and I were . . . having sex last night, and all of a sudden, he's tracing shapes on my stomach and saying some strange words— _esse fecundum_ —something or other--”  
  
“ _Esse fecundum, ferre puer meus, concepit, in amore, esse fecundum._ ” A voice calls from behind them, and Xander and Harry look around. Charlie's half sitting up on one elbow, looking pale but certain. “That's what I was saying when Xander and I—“  
  
“—had our moment of perfect happiness,” Xander interrupts to say. Harry and the Medi-witch roll their eyes.  
  
“Er, yes. But that's what I said. And I was drawing runes on his stomach—don't remember what they were, though. Just the words I said.” Charlie says groaning as he tries to sit all the way up. Xander stands and hurries over to him, pushing him back down on the bed.  
  
“You fainted, Charlie Weasley. I think you need a little more of a lie-down than you're willing to admit, here.” He brushes Charlie's hair back from his face and smiles. “Just kick back for a bit. Relax.”  
  
“Alright.” Charlie smiles back, wanly, and his eyes go to Xander's abdomen. He reaches out and places his hand on it gently. Oddly enough, that contact seems to settle Xander's stomach somewhat—and some of the nausea disspates.  
  
“We made a baby,” Charlie says wonderingly, tears filling his eyes. “Oh, love, we made a  _baby_.”  
  
“Hey, what's this  _we_ , Kemosabe?” Xander demands, but finds himself smiling, too. His hands cover Charlie's. “Who sprung the ferility spell on whom, exactly?”  
  
Charlie winces, but can't seem to stop smiling. “I didn't mean to do that,” he says earnestly. “One moment we're . . . you know, and the next, these  _words_  are coming out of my mouth and I'm drawing these runes on your stomach—I had no intention of getting you pregnant. At least not now, not before we'd had a chance to really talk about it.. . . .”  
  
“Then  _why_  did you say that spell, babe?” Xander asks, glancing back at the wall on which his insides are still displayed. He shivers and looks back at Charlie. “Why?”  
  
“I don't know, love. I honestly don't know.” Now Charlie looks genuinely confused and aggrieved. “It was like a compulsion . . . like something outside of myself was making me speak . . . it was so  _strange_.”  
  
“And don't discount  _your_  part in this, Mr. Harris,” the Medi-witch says from right behind him. He starts, looking around to glare at her. But said glare doesn't put so much as a dent in her chipper disposition. “Quite frankly, Fertility spells that are one-sided  _never_  work. Not only does the caster of the spell have to want the child they're seeking to create, but the recipient of the child, the bearer, has to accept the burden of carrying the child and their own part in the creation of the child. Fertility spells are only effective with the consent of both participants.”  
  
“But I never said—“ only Xander remembers saying that he  _did_  want to start a family with Charlie. “I mean, I  _did_  say I wanted to start a family, but I didn't mean  _now_!”  
  
“Well, apparently some part of your mind and heart did, because that womb is nearly finished. And when it is, you  _will_  be with child.” The Medi-witch nods firmly.  
  
Xander blinks. Then blinks again, unaware there are tears running down his face until Charlie sits up—a lot more steadily, this time, and wipes them away with his free hand. “So you're saying that I had to . . . sign off on this kid, whether consciously or not, or else it wouldn't be here?”  
  
“Exactly!” The Medi-witch says, turning to look back at the wall where Xander's organs are still shifting and nudging and squirming. “Look at it this way, gentlemen: this child wanted to be created, and wanted to be created  _now_. It  _wants_  to be here, and it wants  _you_  as parents. That's quite an honor.”  
  
Xander sniffles. “How can something that doesn't even exist,  _want_  to exist—let alone know who it wants to exist with?”  _Why would_ anything _want me as a mother—father—whatever?_  
  
And then, the Medi-witch does something Xander will never forget. She shrugs, almost haplessly, and smiles.  
  
“Magic,” she says simply.  
  


*

  
  
The Medi-witch has Xander lie down and does some sort of magical work-up, casting spell after spell on him.  
  
“And none of these spells will hurt the baby, will they?” Charlie asks from his spot in the visitor's chair. Behind him, Harry stands like a sentinel, eyeing the Medi-witch and the wall on which Xander's internal organs are still displayed as if expecting something—anything—to happen. He's even got his wand in hand.  
  
Charlie doesn't know whether to be amused or for some reason offended.  
  
“Of course not, Mr. Weasley. They're stabilizing spells—which really should have been performed immediately after the fertilization occurred. But nevertheless, the development of the womb has been quite remarkably stable and steady. There was good, powerful magic in that spell of yours.”  
  
Charlie smiles a little. “Thanks, but it wasn't  _my_  spell. Like I said, it was as if some outside force had control of me.” He squeezes Xander's hand and when Xander looks at him, he reaches out to caress Xander's face. “A  _good_  force, yes?”  
  
Xander's smile is trembling and shell-shocked. “Yes. If a little weird on the timing.”  
  
Chuckling, Charlie leans over and kisses Xander's stomach tenderly. The Medi-witch scoffs.  
  
“Now, really, Mr. Weasley, I nearly performed a pain-relief/anti-nausea spell on your  _head_!”  
  
Harry snorts, a suppressed laugh, and even Xander's trembly smile firms up. Charlie grins and apologizes to the Medi-witch and gestures for her to continue with her spell-casting.  
  
She does so, rolling her kohled eyes.  
  
“Oh!” Xander gasps suddenly, and when everyone looks at him, he laughs a little. “Sorry, the nausea just suddenly . . . went  _poof_. And the cramps, too.”  
  
Charlie looks at the wall. Organs are still wiggling and jiggling, but noticeably less. And the womb, which  _does_  look almost complete, even to Charlie's untrained eyes, seems to have found its niche, tight though the fit is.  
  
And soon, that womb will be the nesting place of their first child. . . .  
  
 _Mine and Xander's first child_.  
  
Just thinking that makes tears of unadulterated joy spring to his eyes.  
  
“Babe, what's the matter?” Xander asks, turning Charlie's face more fully toward his own. Charlie smiles and kisses Xander's hand again.  
  
“Absolutely nothing, love. I've never been so happy as I am right now.” He searches Xander's eyes—tired, but lovely, as always—and presses Xander's hand to his cheek. “And the only thing that would make me happier would be if you did me the honor of marrying me.”  
  
Xander gapes, then shakes his head wryly. “Here's something I never thought I'd say: You don't have to propose to me just because I'm pregnant, Charlie.”  
  
Charlie tilts his head questioningly. “What makes you think that's why I'm proposing?”  
  
“C'mon.” Xander rolls his eyes. “Why else would you be proposing to me  _right now_?”  
  
“Because you've just made me the happiest man in the world, love. I'll admit, my timing is crap, and this isn't the most romantic place to do it, but I'm sincere in my plight.” Charlie leans in till their foreheads brush. “I love you, and I want nothing more than to spend the rest of my life with you— _bound_  to you by as many ties as possible.”  
  
Xander sighs. It's not an unhappy sound, either. “You sure know how to sweet-talk a fella, Charlie Weasley.”  
  
“Is that a 'yes'?”  
  
“Of  _course_  it's a yes!” Xander exclaims quietly. “Are you nuts? I'd never turn down a chance to marry my baby-daddy!”  
  
“What—?”  
  
“I'd kiss you,” Xander says apologetically. “But I've barfed, like, twice, since we got here.”  
  
“Oh.” Charlie smiles and touches his wand. “ _Scourgify_.”  
  
“ _Mr. Weasley_! I'm still casting spells!”  
  
“Sorry, sorry,” Charlie laughs, but it's muffled by Xander kissing him, long and hard.  
  


*

  
  
By the time they leave the Ministry, it's apparently the beginning of the workday.  
  
Sleepy-eyed witches and wizards are straggling and tumbling out of the Floo. Some bump into each other with apologies from both parties. Most of the time, however, it's a series of near-misses.  
  
Xander, Charlie, and Harry walk down the great hall, toward the Floo to someplace called  _Slug and Jigger's Apothecary_ —Apparation is no longer safe for Xander to use, for the next few months. Until the baby is more fully developed, it's the Floo or Muggle transportation—barely noticed by anyone. Though the few that  _do_  notice them pass by wide-eyed and suddenly quite awake.  
  
“Uh . . . maybe I should've worn a fake nose and glasses,” Xander says, and Harry glares at a passing wizard who's goggling unabashedly at them. The man looks away quickly.  
  
“Well, at this point, the secret's out that yes, there's a man who looks like Tom Riddle in Wizarding Britain. There's no sense in hiding your face. You can't stay cooped up in Grimmauld Place for the rest of your life. People need to get used to seeing you.” Harry strides along, slightly in front of them. “Better they get used to seeing you while there's a trained auror in tow.”  
  
“I guess you're right,” Xander says, looking at Charlie, who puts an arm around his shoulder and pulls him close.  
  
“And I'll be with you all the way,” he promises and Xander smiles, patting his shirt pocket, where sits a piece of referral parchment to a Medi-witch at St. Mungo's—one who specializes in wizard's pregnancies and fertility issues—and another few slips with prescriptions on them.  
  
“All of which,” the Goth Medi-witch had said, “can be found in Diagon Alley.”  
  
“Diagonally?” Xander had asked, confused.  
  
“No,  _Diagon Alley_ ,” Charlie had said, taking the prescriptions and looking them over. “Slug and Jigger's will have this stuff—all of it.”  
  
“You'll want to get that concentrated ginger-root as soon as possible—it'll help keep the stomach issues from returning.” The Medi-witch had nodded. “Get that out of the way and set up the appointment at St. Mungo's for as soon as you can. They'll likely have you visiting weekly—“  
  
“ _Weekly_?!” Xander had squawked. The Medi-witch raised an eyebrow.  
  
“Most wizards have twice-weekly visits, the state of their health is so fragile. So far, you seem to be healthy as a horse. Count your blessings. ”  
  
“Believe me, we are,” Charlie had replied. And Xander had sighed, patting his stomach.  
  
“Yes, we are,” he'd agreed.  
  
Now, as they stand in front of the Floo to the apothecary, Xander looks at Charlie and sighs again. “So, this Diagonally-place . . . has a little bit of everything, huh?”  
  
“Yep.” Charlie kisses Xander softly. “We can get you loads of things you'll be needing—not just these prescriptions.”  
  
“Things like?”  
  
“Well, new clothes, for one . . . unless you want me to  _Accio_  the ones back at your flat. . . .” Charlie grimaces, and Xander shakes his head.  
  
“No. There's nothing at that flat that I need.”  
  
That grimace turns into a small smile. “Good. Well, new clothes, then. Maybe a familiar—“  
  
Xander laughs. “What? Like a black cat?”  
  
“If you like.” Charlie's smile widens. Then he glances at Harry out of the corner of his eye. “And a wand and some beginner's spell books.”  
  
“Charlie,” Harry warns sternly, holding a handful of floo powder. Charlie hugs Xander close for a moment, then turns him to face Harry.  
  
“ _You_  tell Xander, then, that he can't practice magic. Magic he was born with.”  
  
“Charlie, don't,” Xander says, looking away from Harry's green gaze. But Charlie holds him firm.  
  
“That's just it, it's not  _my job_  to say whether he can or can't. The Wizengamot—“ Harry begins reasonably. Charlie cuts him off.  
  
“Will drag their feet about it forever! Our child will be in his third year at Hogwarts before  _they_ come to a decision!” He snorts. “If you can't give your blessing, then at least just look the other way. Please. I don't want Xander to be wandless now that the wizarding world's eye is on him. Now that he's . . . now that we're expecting a child.” He puts a hand on Xander's abdomen, and Xander covers it with his own, shivering as the news hits him  _all over again_.  
  
 _I'm pregnant,_  he thinks wonderingly, both cautiously pleased and mildly dismayed.  _I'm pregnant with Charlie's baby. . . ._  
  
Harry sighs and rolls his eyes. “You certainly don't ask for much, do you?”  
  
Charlie kisses Xander's temple, grinning. “I save the  _truly_  little favors to ask of family.” He holds out his hand. Harry looks down at it, frowns for a moment, then relents and shakes it.  
  
“Alright, then. Let's go,” he says tersely, dumping his handful of floo powder back in the bowl. Then he's marching off toward another fireplace. “We'll do  _Ollivander's_  first and get it out of the way before I come to my senses.”  
  
Xander and Charlie look at each other, shrug, then follow after, hand in hand.  
  
“Um . . . how much does a wand cost?” Xander whispers uncertainly, feeling for his wallet. “Not to mention the clothes and the familiar? I don't know if I can afford all this stuff, Charlie. Even with You-know-who's credit card.”  
  
Charlie's mouth purses momentarily, but then it curves in a wry smile. “ _I_  can. I don't really spend my money on much, so it has this lovely habit of . . . accumulating. I can think of nothing I'd  _rather_  spend it on than on helping you get established in the wizarding world.”  
  
“But—I can't take your money—“  
  
“ _Our_  money, love.” Charlie squeezes Xander's hand. “Remember: We're this close to being married. And speaking of, my brother, Percy, as a high-ranking Ministry official, can even perform the ceremony at the Burrow, whenever you want. If you haven't any objections.”  
  
“You know I don't.” Xander blushes and swings their hands. “Effective subject change.”  
  
“ _I_  thought so.”  
  
“C' _mon_ , you two! Some of us still have to be at work in less than two hours!” Harry calls back, waiting at a fireplace with arms akimbo and foot tapping. He looks like a pissed-off accountant, and Xander nearly laughs.  
  
Instead, he and Charlie hurry to catch up.  
  



	17. A Trip to Diagon Alley (1/2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A shopping spree in Diagon Alley. Xander's fame precedes him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: Just borrowing, thanks.

When they get to the Floo at which Harry's waiting, Charlie suddenly scoops Xander up in his arms, and Xander squawks, grabbing on for dear life.  
  
“Whoa! Whoa! Save it for after the wedding, manly!” he says, and Charlie grins.  
  
“I'll not have you tumbling tail-over-tea-kettle out the other side while you're in such a delicate condition. Ninety-nine percent of the time I can land on my feet when flooing. So this is the way we'll do it, for the time being.”  
  
“Charlie, you romantic old sod. You never offered to carry  _me_  while flooing,” Harry mutters, falsely forlorn. Xander glares, grabbing a handful of floo powder when Charlie pauses at the mantle.   
  
Then they're in the fireplace, and Xander throws the powder down, just as he's seen Harry and Charlie do.  
  
And they're off.  
  


*

  
  
Charlie steps, without a stumble, into  _Ollivander's_ , Xander in his arms, safe as houses. He moves away from the Floo to give Harry room for his usual spectacular entrance.  
  
“Well. Here we are,” Charlie murmurs, watching Xander goggle at the place—boxes and boxes of wands, though not nearly as many as there once were, when Charlie was a lad. Mr. Ollivander's is one of many businesses still recovering from Voldemort's reign of terror. “There didn't used to be a direct Floo here, of course, but after the war, all shops in Diagon Alley have a Floo so that if necessary, people can be evacuated as quickly as possible.”  
  
Xander frowns a little and sighs. Then he obviously tries to smile and looks at Charlie. “Sounds like a smart idea.”  
  
Charlie smiles a little. “One of Harry's, I believe. He was certainly instrumental in making sure every business complied.”  
  
“I'll bet,” Xander rolls his eyes. “You know, you can put me down, now.”  
  
“I could.” Charlie leans in and Xander meets him half-way for a kiss. “But I don't think I'm ready to, just yet.”  
  
“Charlie. . . .”  
  
“Xander. . . .”  
  
They laugh, and lean in for another kiss. But this one's interrupted by Harry shooting out of the Floo like a bowling ball, nearly knocking over a whole shelf full of boxes.  
  
He rolls onto his back with a groan and simply lays there.  
  
“No time to lay around, mate,” Charlie says, putting Xander down carefully, then sliding an arm around his waist. “You've got work in two hours!”  
  
Harry gives them both the two finger salute before sitting up slowly, one hand at his head. “I may be going with you to St. Mungo's. That was a particularly bad ride.”  
  
“I thought it was just fine,” Xander teases, getting a little of his own back. Harry glares at him.  
  
“Yes, well, we don't  _all_  have a muscle-bound husbands to carry us through Floo points and what-not.”  
  
Xander laughs. “This is true. Hey, are there wands in all these boxes?”  
  
“Every single one, yes.”  
  
They both turn at the voice coming from down an aisle to their left. Shortly thereafter an old man emerges from the aisle. He barely looks changed since the war years, but then, the war years had aged him terribly.  
  
Had aged them all, really.  
  
“Mr. Ollivander!” Charlie exclaims, genuinely glad and touched that the old character is still knocking around, creeping the hell out of newer generations of wizarding children.  
  
“Mr. Weasley, Mr. Potter . . . how remarkable to see you both again. And  _you_ ,” the old man says, looking at Xander expectantly. “I've been wondering when you'd show up at my shop.”  
  
Xander's eyebrows shoot up. “You  _have_?” He glances at Charlie, who shrugs. “I see. And, uh, why is that?”  
  
Ollivander merely smiles his eerie smile, and turns toward the front of the shop, gesturing them to follow.  
  


*

  
  
The front of the shop is no less cramped than the back, as far as Xander's concerned. No less creepy, either, since that Ollivander guy's got enough creep for any ten small shops.  
  
Though the early morning sunlight coming in through the windows  _does_  make it a bit more palatable.  
  
In the small front area, he and Charlie, and Harry—still rubbing his head and his ass simultaneously—wait while the old man goes behind his desk and rummages around for what turns out to be three long, narrow boxes. Presumably with wands in them.  
  
“Are the other two back-ups?” Xander whispers to Charlie, not wanting him to be swindled into buying two unnecessary wands.  
  
Charlie smiles a little. “No, they're three wands that'll possibly be suited to you. You'll have to hold each one for him to decide which one is  _best_  suited to you.”  
  
“Oh.” Beat. “So  _I_  don't get to choose? Maybe something that matches my eyes?”  
  
“Hush,” Charlie says, lips twitching. Xander grins.  
  
Ollivander, meanwhile, has lined the three boxes up and opened them. Inside rest three very different-looking wands. He selects the one in the center first and holds it out toward Xander, who glances at Charlie and Harry, then steps forward. He reaches out for the wand, but has barely brushed the cool, dark, satin-smooth wood when the box it had been in bursts into flame. Xander yelps and jumps back, startled.  
  
“ _Stingueo_!” Harry is quick to swish and flick the fire out.  
  
“Well, obviously not  _that_  one,” Ollivander says, sounding both surprised and put-out as he places the wand back in the scorched box. Xander snorts.  
  
“Too-fucking-right, not that one!” Xander lets out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding. Ollivander bends a look at him, then selects the wand to the right of the center. It's rather short, but solid, and a golden-y brown affair that seems to practically glow even in the dim light off the shop.  
  
“Try this one, Mr. Harris,” he says, holding it out. Xander edges closer and closer, till he can poke at it with his index finger. Nothing happens. Not even when Xander is bold enough to actually take hold of the thing.  
  
“Well?” Ollivander says irritably. “Give it a wave, and let's see!”  
  
“Uh . . . okay.” Xander swashes to the right, like swordsman. Then to the left, incidentally knocking down a small stack of boxes over. Some of them open and the wands inside roll out and about their feet. Ollivander glares and Xander swashes right again.  
  
Nothing.  
  
“Well. No flick in  _this_  stick.” Xander hands it back to Ollivander, who looks more put-out than ever, as if Xander's doing this on purpose. “Sorry.”  
  
“Hmph.” Ollivander shoves the second wand in the box and pulls out the third. This one has a greyish hue, and is long and anorexic-looking, like a wand made for supermodels.  
  
Snorting, Xander reaches out for it. It's cold in his hand, and when he waves it, it starts to snow.  
  
Heavily.  
  
“Battin' oh-for-three, here,” Xander says, shivering and handing the wand back. Ollivander takes it and puts it back in its box. Then he waves his own wand.  
  
“ _Finite_!”  
  
The snow stops. But there's already half an inch of it on the floor.  
  
“Talk about hard to shop for,” Harry says going over to help Xander and Charlie pick up the boxes Xander had knocked over, and re-stack them.  
  
“I just don't understand,” Ollivander's saying, scratching his head as he stares at the three wands.  
  
“Well, we could come back another time, maybe try some more . . .  _whoa_. . . .” Xander exhales, standing up, holding a wand and looking at it closely. The wood is flexible and light, faintly greenish, and it looks to be exactly one foot long. It's warm to the touch and that warmth seems to emanate from the wand, into Xander's arm, and the rest of him. Despite the drop in temperature in the shop—and the snow—Xander's suddenly toasty-warm.  
  
“ _Cool_.” Xander swishes the wand a little, wary, at first, of fire or snow, but instead of any of that happening, Xander just gets more of that warm-feeling. It's quite a powerful sensation.  
  
And the wand, well, it's the most beautiful wand he's ever seen. Not that he's seen that many, but surely,  _this_  one is the most beautiful wand there ever was. It's so . . .  _something_. It seems to glow with a soft, light-green emanance and Xander wants nothing more than to swish it and flick it, so he does. Just like Medi-witch Benza had showed him.  
  
“ _Wingardium Leviosa_. . . .” he breathes, as that sensation of power fills him, till it feels as if he's overflowing with it . . . then it pours purposefully out of him, into his wand. And at first, for a second, nothing happens. Then, with a thousand separate quiverings, each and every box and wand and other object in the shop that's not chained down lifts gently off its resting surface, to hover exactly one inch above it.  
  
“Hey, Charlie,” Xander says, breathless, now, with excitement, his whole body tingling with static electricity. He feels like a million bucks, suddenly. Like he could fight, fuck, or fly. Or all three, even.  _At once_ , even. He looks down at a gaping Charlie and Harry, then over at a wide-eyed Ollivander. “I think this one likes me.”  
  


*

  
  
“I love you  _soooooo_  much,” Xander leans in close to whisper in Charlie's ear. “Like, more than _anything_.”  
  
Charlie keeps a restraining arm around his fiance as they walk down Diagon Alley. Xander's all hands and lips, practically humping Charlie's leg. Harry, ashamed to be seen with them, no doubt, is stalking eight paces ahead.  
  
Ever since Xander found that wand—and levitated the contents of Mr. Ollivander's shop—he's been quite affectionate and handsy.  
  
“Bloody wand-drunkenness,” he mutters, as Xander puts a hand on his arse and squeezes. Hard. “Xander . . . what you're feeling right now is natural. It's called wand-drunkenness, and it happens to all wizards when they get their first wands. Of course, usually, they're children, and the wand-drunkenness takes a, er, somewhat different form—”  
  
Xander steps in front of him, smiling at him, flushed and sultry. “I want you  _right now_ , Charlie Weasley. I wanna be rode hard, and put away wet.”  
  
Charlie swallows and clears his throat. “Yes. That's—well. But we have errands to run. . . .”  
  
Pouting, Xander puts his arms around Charlie's neck and presses their bodies together. He's hard and of course, now, so is Charlie.  
  
“You know, clothing stores usually have changing rooms. . . .” he says archly. “And I can use my nice new wand to practice that undressing spell . . . and that lube spell. . . .”  
  
Charlie groans at the sudden rush of blood to all points south. “Xand, I—“  
  
“Am I going to have to separate you two?” Harry demands from right next to them. They both start and blush.  
  
“Sorry, mate.”  
  
“Sorry, Harry.”  
  
Harry rolls his eyes. “C'mon, we're nearly at  _Magical Menagerie_.”  
  
Looking chastened, Xander lets go of Charlie, but not without one final press of his body, like a promise.  
  
“Later,” he whispers. Charlie fights a very big smile, not entirely successfully, judging from the looks on Xander's and Harry's faces.  
  
“Indeed.” He clears his throat and takes Xander's free hand—the other one is clenched around his new wand—and, swinging it, they continue down Diagon Alley. This time Harry's walking at their side like a chaperon.  
  
Xander, his libido temporarily put-off, is looking around him with interest, goggling and gaping at the places and the people that surround them.  
  
Some of those people goggle and gape right back.  
  
Xander, wand-drunk and sparkling with it, waves and says 'hello' to every eye he meets. To one, he even introduces himself: “Hi, I'm Xander! I'm new in town!”  
  
“Hello, Xander! I'm Anne! Welcome to Diagon Alley!” One young witch says, though another witch, who can only, with her similar looks, be the younger witch's mother, elbows her. The younger witch looks blank, but the older witch looks horrified. She hustles the younger witch off quickly.  
  
“She was nice,” Xander muses, pulling Charlie's arm around him, his now free hand going to his stomach. “I'm hungry. After we get the familiar, can we stop somewhere and get some food?”  
  
“I have to be at work in a little over an hour, Xander,” Harry says tiredly. “Can't it wait till we get you back to Grimmauld Place?”  
  
Xander's stomach suddenly growls ferociously.  
  
“I don't think so.” He pats his abdomen lightly. “Besides, I'm eating for two, now.”  
  
“You know, he's right . . . look, why don't we do this: You go to work, let us finish shopping, and when we're done, we'll go wait for you at the Burrow.” Charlie says as they stop outside of _Magical Menagerie_. Xander's attention is immediately snagged by a small, terrier-like crup on a leash. Said crup barks a high, puppy bark and springs up to get to Xander.  
  
“Aw . . . hey, boy, aren't  _you_  cute for a mutant.” Xander squats and pets the crup, which licks his hand and face excitedly, its forked tail wagging ceaselessly. “Yes, he is! He's cute for a mutie!”  
  
“—sorry, but I can't do that. You really should have at least one auror on guard until the wizarding world gets used to seeing Xander walking around, looking like You-Know-Who.” Harry spreads his hands. “That's non-negotiable. Especially since, as you point out, he's pregnant.”  
  
“Well, we have to start living our lives at  _some_  point, Harry.”  
  
“Yes, but that point isn't now.” Harry looks at Charlie, his eyebrows quirked. “Do you  _really_ think it's now?”  
  
Remembering the young witch and her horrified mother, Charlie sighs. “No. Perhaps not.”  
  
Harry, pats Charlie's arm, a gesture of solidarity. “Don't worry. Your time will come. And sooner than you think.”  
  
“Let's hope so.”  
  
They watch Xander play with the crup-pup for a few minutes. Finally, Xander looks up, eyes alight, face open and happy.  
  
“Okay, I don't know if wizards can have puppies as familiars, but . . . yeah. I think I want this little guy, right here. I mean, yeah, he's got two tails, but nobody's perfect.” Xander grins, scratching the crup's head. The animal barks and butts Xander's hand for more.  
  
“Actually, mate, that's not a dog. It's what's called a crup. And it's  _supposed_  to have a forked tail. Oh, and the bloody things tend to be . . . not fond of Muggles. Never seen one that didn't let up a ruckus when around them.”   
  
“A racist dog?” Xander's eyebrows shoot up and he looks at the excited crup again. “That's a bad boy, Jason. Very bad.”  
  
The crup merely continues to bark happily and lick whatever parts of Xander he can get at.  
  
“You've already named him, I see,” Charlie says, smiling a little. Xander looks up at Charlie.  
  
“I always wanted a dog named Jason. Now, I sorta have one . . . if it's okay with you.”  
  
“Of  _course_  it's okay with me. I couldn't be more thrilled that you've found a familiar so quickly. And without having to levitate half the pets in the store to do it!” Charlie chuckles and Harry joins him.  
  
When Xander  _hmphs_  and goes back to playing with Jason, Harry leans in to whisper to Charlie. “A guard dog, of sorts. Not a bad idea.”  
  
Charlie snorts. “ _That_  little thing?”  
  
Harry shrugs. “Little things sometimes have big hearts. And anyway, he can at least be a first warning sign for magical dangers. Something you both rather need, living at Grimmauld Place.”  
  
“Hmm,” Charlie says thoughtfully, then kneels to pet Jason who, no discriminator when it comes to affection, jumps for Charlie's hand, too. At least at first. But apparently, when he's satisfied himself that Charlie gives pets as willingly as Xander, he goes right back to Xander, whimpering and whining like a much younger pup.  
  
Around and above them, both caged and not, are owls, ravens, bats, rabbits, cats, and rats—and, of course, people looking at the caged and not ravens, bats, and rabbits, cats, and rats.  
  
“So what do crups eat?”  
  
“Pretty much anything, love. They're like goats, in that respect.”  
  
“My two-tailed goat-dog . . . yes, you are, Jason.”  
  
Jason barks happily, as if in agreement.  
  
“C'mon, love.” Charlie stands up, laughing, and undoes the leash from the railing. “Let's go see a lady about a crup.”  
  
Xander grins, standing up with Jason in his arms, then makes a face as his own is licked copiously. “Ugh! You may not be a dog, Jase, but you've definitely got dog breath!”  
  
Charlie chuckles and puts a hand on the small of Xander's back, guiding him into the small shop.  
  
Neither of them notice when Harry, smiling, disappears into the crowds walking by, digging in his pocket.  
  


*

  
  
“ . . . you see that weird  _thing_?”  
  
Charlie chuckles, bearing up under a gigantic sack of crup-chow. “You'll have to be more specific than that, love.”  
  
Xander puts Jason down and takes hold of his leash. Jason immediatedly sits, staring up at Xander patiently and with awe, as if at a god. “That thing that looked like like a turtle designed by QVC.”  
  
“QV- _what_?”  
  
“No, QV _C_. By which I mean, the thing that lives inside that big jeweled shell.  _Was_  that a turtle?”  
  
“Ah, that was a Fire Crab.” Charlie squats, putting down the giant bag of chow, and scratches Jason's head, receiving a lick for his efforts. “Very rare, very expensive.”  
  
“I can imagine. And those things that looked like Tribbles? Uh, like little balls of fur. And they were purring,” Xander adds.  
  
“Those'd be puffskeins. Plentiful and cheap. They make terrible familiars, but wonderful pets. Especially for people who generally don't like animals.  _Everyone_  loves puffskeins.” He looks around curiously. “Oi, where's Harry gone off to?”  
  
Xander glances around. See some more starers—refuses to let it bother him, and smiles at them, big and bright, like he's Cordelia Chase—but no Harry Potter. “I dunno. Last time I saw him, he was right here.”  
  
“Huh.” Charlie stands up and pulls Xander into his arms for a kiss. Xander goes happily, wrapping his arms around Charlie's neck.  
  
“What say,” Charlie murmurs, his hands sliding over from Xander's hips to his ass. “We go on to _Madame Malkin's_ , and let Harry catch up with us?”  
  
Xander's smile is slow and coy. “Feeling the sudden need for a changing room?”  
  
“Oh, I surely am.”  
  
“Mm, and how far is this  _Madame Malkin's_?”  
  
“Just next to  _Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlor_. Which isn't far away at all,” Charlie promises. With another kiss. And another.  
  
And there would be a third, but for Jason's sudden barking, and a breathy, breath _less_  voice to their right.  
  
“Ah, not-so-young love . . . so sweet and inspiring. . . .”  
  
Xander looks over and finds himself gaping at a witch in  _the_  most garish robes he's seen yet. They're like zebra print . . . only in lime-green and orange. Her hair is blonde—bottle, he senses—and done up in ringlets that'd look more appropriate on Shirley Temple. She's wearing glasses that match her robes, and overall, gives the impression of a drag-queen.  
  
A really  _tacky_  one.  
  
She smiles in a way that's meant to be charming, but somehow isn't. “And how are the two lovers finding Diagon Alley, today? The whole Alley is simply  _abuzz_  with news of the man who looks like Tom Riddle out and about with Harry Potter and . . . well, some Weasley, or another.” She laughs, a tinkling litle phony thing that for some reason grates on Xander.  
  
And on Charlie, because even out of the corner of his eye, he can see Charlie's face has gone red.  
  
“Rita Skeeter,” Charlie grits out, his arms tighteing around Xander. Rita Skeeter smiles even wider, and Xander suddenly notices, just behind her shoulder, a floating pen and piece of parchment. The pen is scribbling away.  
  
“The one and only, Mr. Weasley—er,  _which_  Mr. Weasley is it, again? The one who brought the dragons over for the Tri-Wizard Tournament all those years ago, is it not?”  
  
Charlie lets go of Xander and draws his wand, pointing it for a moment at a startled Rita Skeeter, who takes a step back . . . then Charlie points it at the big sack of crup-chow and says: “ _Wingardium Leviosa_.”  
  
Xander quickly picks up Jason, who's still barking furiously at Rita Skeeter.  
  
“You just stay away from us,” Charlie warns, taking Xander's hand and marching off into the flow of foot traffic. "For Merlin's sake!"  
  
“Who's she?” Xander asks, glancing back at this . . . Rita Skeeter, who's standing where they left her, watching them hurry away with a smile on her face. She even waves at Xander.  
  
“You know those articles the  _Prophet's_  been running about you? Well, she's the one who's been writing them.” Charlie levitates the crup-chow through the crowds without much regard for the other people who happen to be in them. "That nosy, spying bitch has no respect for privacy, nor a sense of common decency. I've no doubt we'll be in the evening edition of the  _Prophet_ , snogging for all the world to see."  
  
Suddenly rather disheartened and disillusioned, Xander clutches his new wand and his new familiar tight, and simply tries to keep up.


	18. A Trip to Diagon Alley (2/2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A shopping spree in Diagon Alley. Xander's fame precedes him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: Just borrowing, thanks.

“Charlie— _Charlie_! Stop!”  
  
Charlie barely hears Xander, intent as he is on getting away from that vile woman. But when Xander yanks his hand away, the loss of that contact stops him—and the sack of crup-food--instantly. He whirls around. “What? What is it?” he demands, impatiently. Xander glares and points with his new wand at the establishment in front of which they've stopped.  
  
_Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions_  the sign above it says.  
  
Even Jason yips as if pointing out this simple fact. And Charlie blushes, sighing. “Sorry, love. I was just trying to get us away from that—carbuncle on the arse of wizarding society.”  
  
Xander's glare softens . . . melts completely away. He approaches Charlie and, when close enough, kisses his cheek. Jason squirms between them. “I know, hon. But we've left her behind. Relax, and lets try on some clothes. Retail-therapy works wonders for the distressed mind. I learned that from my first girlfriend.”  
  
Charlie finds himself smiling. He brushes Xander's dark, silky hair out of his face and runs his thumb across one cheekbone. “You're right. We shouldn't let that gnat of a woman ruin your first trip to Diagon Alley.” He steps closer, till they're sharing air, then till they're sharing a kiss. Xander moans softly.  
  
“Still up for changing room sexy-times?” he murmurs on Charlie's lips. Charlie chuckles.  
  
“Always.”  
  
Xander grins at him. “Then what're we doin' standing around  _here_  for? C'mon!”  
  
He goes up to the door and opens it. A little bell  _dings_ , and Xander glances back at Charlie archly and winks.  
  
Grinning, himself—and glancing around to make sure Rita Skeeter is well and truly behind them—Charlie levitates the crup-chow after Xander then follows suit.  
  


*

  
  
Somehow or other, instead of immediately co-opting a changing room, they actually wind up _trying on robes_.  
  
Well, Xander winds up trying on robes, anyway, and he's truly flabbergasted.  
  
As he models the umpteenth robe—this one in sable and green—Charlie makes a little twirling motion with his finger that means  _turn around, let me get a look_.  
  
Heaving a very audible sigh— _How did I not know my boyfriend is_ this _gay?_  he wonders—Xander turns around like a petulant child, and Charlie and Madam Malkin make considering faces. This is the first robe that hasn't immediately been vetoed by one or the other of them.  
  
“It matches his eyes,” Madam finally says, approvingly, smiling. Even Jason, laying on the floor at Charlie's feet, as well-behaved as anyone could want, barks once as if in affirmation.  
  
“Yes, but is it . . .  _too_  nice?” Charlie ponders, and Xander, offended, puts his hands on his hips and glares.  
  
“What do you mean  _too nice_?”  
  
Charlie blinks then smiles in chagrin. “Sorry, love, I just meant I don't want anyone admiring you  _too_  much. I'm a Weasley. We have jealous streaks wider than a country mile.”  
  
Ruffled feathers soothed, Xande drifts over to his fiance and wraps his arms around him. “If you like this robe on me, we should get it. And maybe I'll wear it the old-fashioned way for you when we get back to Grimmauld Place,” he adds in a whisper, kissing Charlie's earlobe as he does so.  
  
Charlie clears his throat. “Madam,” he begins in a voice that's a bit shaky. “Could you pick out a few more robes for Xander? We'll just be—er, in the changing room. Changing.”  
  
“Oh, certainly!” Madam says, clapping her hands together in anticipation. “I spotted some nicely flared robes that would look so handsome on you, Mr. Harris. I'll be back in a few minutes!” She practically flutters off, a plump butterfly of a woman, with greying dark hair and a kind smile.  
  
Charlie and Xander watch her go, then Xander turns to Jason, who's watching him attentively.  
  
“ _Stay_ ,” he tells the crup, who licks his chops and shows no sign of getting up.  
  
Then he and Charlie are making their way back to the changing room, hand in hand.  
  


*

  
  
Things have just gotten good—really,  _really_  good—in their little sound-proofed slice of Shangri-la, when Charlie hears a familiar voice.  
  
“—my friends were supposed to be here. Tall, muscular fellow with red hair and a dark haired American chap. Possibly with a crup—oh, well, there's the crup, anyway. Hullo, Jason.”  
  
Leaning back against the mirrored wall, Charlie looks down at Xander, who's on his knees and in the midst of giving a mind-melting, prick-tease of a blowjob. He's been letting Charlie guide his motions and fuck his mouth with cock-hardening complaisance, and without breaking eye contact the whole while. His mouth, so pretty even when at rest, is bloody  _gorgeous_  stretched around Charlie's cock, and the sounds Xander's making—brief, choked little moans and whimpers, as if he can't get enough—send Charlie to the stratosphere.  
  
“—the changing room, Mr. Potter, some time ago. I can't imagine why they're having so much trouble with one of my robes!”  
  
“Neither can I,” Harry replies so dryly, that dryness comes across quite well even through the wall. “Well, I suppose I'll wait for them out here. You don't mind, do you?”  
  
“Of course not, Mr. Potter! You're always welcome . . . hmm . . . that robe of yours is looking a little frayed around the edges. . . .”  
  
Tuning out Harry's and Madam's voices, Charlie pushes his cock forward, past Xander's pink, swollen lips, and doesn't stop until Xander's eyes begin to water. Xander swallows around him, humming and moaning. He's mastered the art of deep-throating in a way Charlie envies even as he enjoys it. He runs his fingers through Xander's hair and cups Xander's face in his hand, withdrawing his cock slowly, till the tip rests on Xander's lips, painting them with pre-come. Xander swallows once and smiles.  
  
“Hop-along Cassidy's arrived,” he says roughly, hoarsely, nodding toward the door to the changing room. “Shall we speed things up?”  
  
Charlie smiles. “You've read my mind. Ah, bloody hell,” he sighs when Xander takes him in again, just the tip at first, tonguing the slit. Charlie bites his lip and leans his head back against the wall upon which the rest of his body is also depending for support. Xander wraps one hand around the base of Charlie's cock and gets down to business. In short order, Charlie's gasping and keening and coming in Xander's mouth  
  
Xander, for his part, wastes no time standing up to kiss Charlie, who moans as he realizes Xander has not swallowed his come but is, in fact, sharing it with him via the kiss. He's moaning and groaning himself, his body shaking in Charlie's arms.  
  
By the time it's all gone, but for the lingering taste of bitter salt, Charlie's fumbling at the fly of Xander's jeans, searching for hot hardness. What he finds is warm wetness. Xander chuckles, albeit a little sheepishly.  
  
“Sorry . . . I came just after we started kissing,” Xander apologizes, still in that hoarsely sexy voice. He licks his lips and smiles. “What can I say? I've got an oral fixation. At least when it comes to you.”  
  
Charlie grins, his fingers still rubbing the wet-spot on Xander's jeans. Behind it, he can feel that much like himself, Xander's still half-hard.  
  
He's also, Charlie's just noticed, still wearing that sable and green robe.  
  
“This really does look good on you, you know?” he murmurs, brushing the right lapel, and Xander lights up.  
  
“Really? I don't look . . . silly?”  
  
Charlie shakes his head no, and kisses Xander again. “No, you look . . . like a prince. Like you were born to wear robes.” He smiles when Xander blushes. “Hey . . . wanna see something the Medi-witch at the Ministry taught me?”  
  
Xander's brows draw together. “Sure—when was this?”  
  
Charlie pushes Xander back gently and draws his wand, aiming it at Xander's abdomen. “Right about the time you and Harry started talking about that movie about the pregnant Muggle man, just as we were leaving.  _Internum Visum_!”  
  
“Oh, you mean  _Junior_? An Arnold Schwarzenegger classic. Not as good as  _Twins_  but better than _End of Days_ ,” Xander says, his eyes following Charlie's wand as he flicks it toward the opposite wall.  
  
In seconds, there, in all its finished glory, is Xander's shiny, new womb. No organs are wibbling or wobbling or otherwise moving. Everything is still, if a bit cramped looking.  
  
“So. . . .” Xander says, swallowing visibly, placing a hand on his abdomen. “I'm officially pregnant.”  
  
Charlie nods, grinning. “That you are, my love.”  
  
Xander laughs a little. “We're going to have  _baby_ , Charlie.”  
  
“That we are.”  
  
They stand there staring at the wall and the view until there's an impatient knock on the door, at which they both start.  
  
“Charlie! Xander! Honestly, one would think you two were never going back to Grimmauld Place!” Harry's voice, low, but carrying through the door. “C'mon, I'm already massively late for work and we've still got to stop at  _Slug and Jigger's_.”  
  
Xander sighs. “He's right. He's been really good about all this, but he's right.” He smiles limply at Charlie, who reluctantly says  _Finite_. Then he  _Scourgifies_  them both and they straighten out their clothes.  
  
“Ready?” Charlie asks, and Xander nods once, smiling again, though he looks a little . . . shiny about the eyes. “You sure?”  
  
“Just open the door, Charlie, before Harry has an aneurysm.” Xander chuckles.  
  
When the door is opened, Harry looks them over sternly. “Two grown men,” he says, shaking his head, and Charlie turns a bit pink. Xander merely pushes past Harry.  
  
“Womb's finished. I'm officially preggers,” he says nonchalantly. “Jason? Here, boy! C'mon!”  
  
The crup's bark precedes him, and when he does arrive, he jumps up into Xander's waiting arms.  
  
“Congratulations. I think you'll both be wonderful fathers,” Harry says, looking at Charlie questioningly. Charlie can only shrug, and silently promise to himself to keep an eye on his fiance.  
  
“Thanks, Harry!” Xander carries a lick-happy Jason into the the main room, where he stops at the entryway. “Aw . . . Harry, is that  _your_  owl? It's adorable.”  
  
Smiling a little, Harry claps Charlie on the back and they approach the entryway and Xander. “Actually, she's  _your_  owl.”  
  
Xander takes a few steps forward just as Charlie and Harry reach the entryway. Sitting on one of Madam's tables is a tall cage with rather small, tawny-colored owl in it. Said owl looks like a fluffball of feathers—more feathers than owl. But her eyes are large, dark, and intelligent.  
  
“You—you got her for  _me_?” Xander looks over from the cage at Harry.  
  
“More for you  _both_ , actually. So you have a way to get hold of me, or anyone, any time of day or night. I figure that, especially now, you should have that extra bit of security. And anyway, _Eeylops_  was having a sale on tawny owls,” Harry ends on a splutter, adjusting his neck tie and clearing his throat.  
  
Xander blinks, that shininess back in his eyes and he puts Jason down. “You didn't have to do this.”  
  
Harry clears his throat again, his cheeks going pink. “I wanted to. If only so I can be kept apprised of your probable whereabouts for the next little while.”  
  
Xander grins and glances at Charlie, who grins back. Then, as one, the two converge upon Harry, who backs away.  
  
“You're for it, mate,” Charlie says, opening his arms. Xander nods. “You totally have it coming, Harry Potter.”  
  
“Oh, no . . . no-no, your thanks was more than enough.” Harry holds up his hands, but that's not enough to stop Charlie or Xander, who shortly have him backed into a corner.  
  
Charlie, being easily the stronger of the two, pulls Harry in for a hug first, lifting Harry clear off the floor, swinging him around, and kissing his cheek soundly.   
  
“Argh! Put me down you big munter!” Harry commands, and Charlie does, laughing, just in time for Xander's less showy, but no less thankful hug—which Harry is still clearly too dizzy to deflect. Not that it seems that he would, for when Xander's arms go around him, Harry actually returns the gesture for a moment.  
  
“Thank you for  _everything_ , Harry. Not just the cool owl.” Xander whispers, kissing the corner of Harry's mouth briefly. Startled, Harry merely stands there, eyes wide, one hand flown to his mouth.  
  
Xander smiles and looks at Charlie, who laughs again, crossing his arms. “Should I be jealous?”  
  
“Absolutely. Harry's my new fiance and we're running off together to . . . where sounds good, sweetie?” Xander asks, linking arms with Harry, who's still blushing. “Hmm. I've always wanted to see Thailand.”  
  
“Hmph!” Harry says, trying unsuccessfully to free his arm. But Xander tugs and cajoles Harry into following him to the large sofa, where he sits them both down. Then Xander's jumping up again as he notices the robes hung on the rack near the window.  
  
“More robes! Harry, you're just in time to help me become a nattily-dressed member of wizarding society!”  
  
Harry holds up his hands again. “Oh, no. I'm strictly the hired muscle. I don't even choose  _my own_  robes—I let Madam do it for me. Ginny says the only taste I have is in my mouth.”  
  
“Most people do, when it comes to choosing their own clothes,” Xander says knowledgeably. “When weighing in on someone else's wardrobe, we can offer a differing and often helpful perspective.” He takes off his sable-and-green robe, and plucks the first robe off the rack, holding it up in front of himself. It is, oddly enough, a tawny-grey affair that matches the owl Harry purchased for him. Xander pulls it on and poses.  
  
“I  _like_  it,” Charlie purrs, imagining undressing a Xander who's wearing nothing but that oh-so-proper robe. He nods his approval and Xander looks at Harry, who colors again.  
  
“It's . . . very nice on you,” he says lamely. Xander rolls his eyes.  
  
“Okay. Looks like we've got a keeper.” He shrugs the robe off and places it next to the sable-and-green one. “Only two more to look at, then we're done.”  
  
“Then to the apothecary, then back to Grimmauld Place.” Harry sounds relieved, and Charlie can't blame him. Harry's been dedicated to his work for the better part of thirty years. Sometimes, it seems like that work is all he thinks he has. Charlie can understand why he'd want to get back to it. What he can't understand is why Harry, so beloved, would feel that way in the first place. . . .  
  
But it's not his place to pry . . . is it?  
  
“Well, let's be quick about it,” he says to Xander, who nods. Just then, Madam comes into the room with an armful of robes and a big smile.  
  
Harry, Xander, and Charlie all groan.  
  


*

  
  
They exit Madam's a surprisingly short time later, levitating packages, crup-chow, and the owl's cage. This latter has fallen to Xander, who, excited, gladly takes up the gauntlet.  
  
The owl—as yet unnamed—seems unruffled as she floats along in her cage, which, except for the occasional dip or wobble, moves along nicely and steadily.  
  
“Look at me, Charlie, Harry! I'm doing it!” Xander exclaims after nearly a minute of  _no_  dips or wobbles. Charlie and Harry share a glance and each claps Xander on his now-robed (in the sable-and-green one, since Charlie can barely keep his hands off it and Xander) back.  
  
“Lovely job, Xand.”  
  
“Yeah, mate. Levitating objects and floating them along with any consistency isn't all that easy. You're doing a fine job.”  
  
Xander practically glows with the praise.  
  
But it all too soon comes to an end as they arrive at  _Slug and Jigger's_.  
  
Xander, fortunately or unfortunately for him, winds up waiting outside with Harry while Charlie gets the prescriptions filled, as one whiff of the place brings the nausea back. Not as bad as before, but still bad enough that Xander just doesn't want to deal with it. Not when he's in such a good mood.  
  
He and Harry take up a spot against a large, blank wall next to the apothecary, with the packages, the owl, and Jason, and settle down to wait in a comfortable silence.  
  
His once more calm stomach reminded him of the baby he was now— _officially_ —carrying, and he placed his hand on his abdomen, rubbing it soothingly.  
  
“You do that a lot,” Harry notes, and Xander looks at him blankly. Harry points at Xander's hand on his abdomen. “That.”  
  
“Oh!” Xander stops and drops his hand to his side, blushing and looking down. Harry smiles a little.  
  
“I didn't mean you should stop. It quite common among pregnant, er, people, to do that.”  
  
Xander glances sidelong at Harry to see if he's joking. “Really?”  
  
“Oh, sure. Ginny used to do that all the time when she was pregnant. For all three kids, too.”  
  
“Wow,  _three_?” Xander shakes his head wonderingly, his hand going back to rubbing his abdomen. “I can barely imagine carrying and having  _this one_. Hell, it's still hitting me like a ton of bricks that I  _can be_  pregnant, let alone that I am. Ginny must be one hell of a woman. I . . . look forward to meeting her, someday.”  
  
Harry's smile fades a little. “She's, er, very busy with the Harpies—the Holyhead Harpies, her Quidditch team. Travelling with them. Which isn't to say she won't want to meet you, her brother's fiance, and all, it's just that . . . well, I feel I should warn you . . . when she was very young, she had a run in with Tom Riddle—“  
  
Xander's jaw drops. “Who hasn't?” He laughs shortly, then covers his mouth. “I'm sorry, Harry, it's just . . . still surprising to me, sometimes, how many people's lives Tommy-boy fucked up.”  
  
Harry sighs. “In this case, it was Tom Riddle's diary—one of his horcruxes—that affected Ginny. And a . . . projection of a very young Tom Riddle. Couldn't have been older than seventeen. She was only eleven.”  
  
“Evil from Jump Street,” Xander shakes his head, leaning against the wall and sliding down into a squat. Jason, excited with this new development, tries to climb all over him for intensive licking.  
  
After a few moments Harry joins Xander, and pets Jason's head.  
  
“Don't worry,” he says finally. “You're not him, and Ginny will recognize that. So will everyone else.”  
  
“Hopefully  _before_  they zap me with some kind of dangerous spell or something.” Xander snorts, rubbing his stomach worriedly.  
  
“It won't come to that. I won't let it,” Harry promises, his hand leaving Jason's head to cover Xander's free hand and squeeze it. Then he's letting go and clearing his throat. “Neither will Charlie.”  
  
They squat in silence for a while, but for Jason's panting and occasional bark. It's still comfortable, the silence, but different, now, the weight of their very different thoughts coming to bear on it. They watch the crowds shift and drift, come and go, largely unnoticed, themselves.  
  
“Heyya, Harry?”  
  
“Yes, Xander?”  
  
“What's Quidditch?”


	19. A Weasley Made

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Xander and Harry don't see eye to eye. Charlie and Xander spend the rest of the day at the Burrow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: What's to disclaim? I own nothing.

“You'll take the Floo from the  _Leaky_ , but instead of going to Grimmauld place, would you like to go to the Burrow, instead?” Harry gestures Xander and Charlie ahead of him through the wall. “It's safe and there's company, and Xander, you can meet some more of the family, while you're there.”  
  
Charlie grins. “That's a cracking idea, mate. Thanks! Sound like a good idea, Xand?”  
  
“Uh—sure,” Xander says hesitantly, most of his concentration on keeping the owl cage level as they pass through the wall, then an open door that leads into a dimly-lit establishment. “Who's, uh, likely to be there?”  
  
“My Mum, of course. Probably at least seven or eight grandchildren. Possibly Angelina or George, since one of them is always there—oh, and likely Bill, since he's on holiday for the next little while and Fleur's away on business . . . why?”  
  
“No reason, just curious,” Xander thinks, glad no mention was made of Ginny Potter. Not that Xander doesn't want to meet her, but . . . well, he dreads her reaction to him. “How'll we get all this stuff to the Burrow, though?”  
  
Harry smiles a little. “I'll  _Apparate_  with the owl and the, er, crup-food. Charlie will be carrying _you_ , I presume—“  
  
“You presume correctly.” Charlie nods. Then he pats the small shoulder sack of Xander's prescriptions. “And I'll take this, too, of course.”  
  
“Should I carry Jason?” Xander asks, and at the sound of his name—Xander is surprised at Jason's quick intelligence . . . he's  _definitely_  not a regular dog—Jason looks up attentively.  
  
“You don't have to. But do as you like.” Harry laughs as Xander picks up Jason with his free arm and cuddles him close. Jason gives him crup-kisses. “Come on, let's go.”  
  
The people populating the  _Leaky Cauldron_  are few and far between, none of the seeming to be interested in the newcomers in their midst. The barman barely glances up as they pass, even though Harry hails him—preferring to simply raise a hand and call: “Oi, Harry.”  
  
When they get to the Floo—it's sooty and  _ancient_ -looking, Xander levitates the cage to Harry, who takes it carefully. Xander feels that glow of pride again— _I did that_ , he thinks, wonderingly, then on the heels of that: How  _did I do that?_  
  
“Hey, Harry?”  
  
Harry smiles over at him. “Yes, Xander?”  
  
“Did anyone figure out why it took me so long to, you know, come into my magical abilities? I mean, I practically grew up around witches and mystics and what-have-you, and never once did I show any signs that I could do magic till, well, now.” Xander shrugs, chuckling when Jason licks his chin.  
  
Harry snorts. “That's one of the things we're still working on. Kingsley thinks it may have something to do with your Hellmouth. See,” Harry pauses, before continuing. “There's a chance that, just as your surrogate father was born a Squib . . . so were you.” Harry sighs. “There's also a chance that living in Sunnydale, almost since birth, broke down whatever barriers prevent Squibs from accessing their magical powers. Over the course of your life, that barrier could have eroded. Being around and working with magic that drew largely from the power of the Hellmouth would have helped it along, too. The final straw being the large amount of dark magic it took to erase your existence and change the flow of time, itself.”  
  
Xander blushes. “You guys . . . already know about that?”  
  
Harry snorts. “We've got more aurors working round the clock than you'd believe, parsing your memories. So yes, we know about Ethan Rayne's time-displacement spell, and how it was used.” He sighs again. “No one's faulting you for saving your friend. It's something that, given the option, I would have done and  _have_  done in your place. I'll tell you about it, sometime.” Smiling just a little, just a curve of his solemn mouth, Harry clears his throat. “Anyway, Kingsley thinks that the erasure of your existence is what erased the last of the barriers blocking your magic. So technically, you would have had use of your magic for the past eight months or so.  
  
“What's more, that bounder, Ethan Rayne, who, it may interest you to know, has been on the Ministry radar since he was expelled from the Durmstrang Institute in his fourth year—and he _must_  have been into some  _extremely_  dark magic to be expelled from Durmstrang—and returned to the United Kingdom. He would have recognized your untrained ability, no doubt in both time-lines. Hence his opportunistic offer to you to . . . assist him with his spells,” Harry says grimly, frowning. “But don't worry. Contributing to the delinquency of a fledgling wizard is enough to get him at least a year in Azkaban. Possibly two.”  
  
“Good,” Charlie says, sounding very satisfied.  
  
“Is—is Azkaban a prison of some sort?” Xander asks, mildly alarmed. Harry's eyebrows journey halfway to his hairline.  
  
“Of sorts, yes. And if we could find him, that's where he'd be, right now, serving out that sentence. But he . . . fell off the radar, so to speak. Quite a while before we knew of your existence. His disappearance coincides with your memories of him being taken by the Initiative. From what we're able to ascertain, that was one of the things that had  _not_  changed from the original time-line.”  
  
Xander's brow furrows, and he looks down at Jason, who whimpers up at him, almost sympathetically. “If you find him . . . I won't testify against him, or help you put him in prison.”  
  
Harry's eyebrows shoot up even higher, somehow, and Charlie's hands land on Xander's shoulders, turning him so they're face to face. He's unusually pale, his eyes dark and disbelieving. “What? Xander—the things he  _did_  to you—”  
  
“I know what he did to me, Charlie,” Xander says, sighing. “Believe me, if he were here, right now, I'd knee him in the balls. But I also know what he did  _for_  me. He helped me give my friends better lives . . . even if I can't be a part of those lives. He gave me a place to stay, when I had literally  _nothing_ —“  
  
Charlie snorts. “For a price!”  
  
“But he didn't have to help me at all!” Xander shakes his head. “I  _owe_  him, Charlie. And if that means not testifying against him in a trial, then that's what I'll do.”  
  
“Xander—“  
  
“We actually wouldn't require your testimony to prosecute Mr. Rayne,” Harry says quietly, from behind them. “We have your memories, and that's more important to the Wizengamot than your testimony.”  
  
Xander freezes, and turns to Harry, who suddenly looks as if he wished he'd kept his mouth shut. But then his face hardens into its usual grim mask.  
  
“You would let them show my memories of . . .  _that_  to a bunch of people I don't even know?”  
  
“It's not my decision to make. It's Mad-Eye's—and he'd do it in a heart beat to get Ethan Rayne and bring him to some sort of justice. Not to mention keep him out of ours and the Interpol Mystical Crimes Division's hair for a year or two.”  
  
“Surely you can put him away on the testimony of the auror that saw Xander's memories of that time?” Charlie asks softly, his arms coming around Xander's shoulders and hugging him close. Xander leans back gratefully, staring disbelievingly at Harry. Harry's avoiding his gaze and looking at Charlie.  
  
“That wouldn't be enough. Xander's memories would have to be viewed, discussed, and entered into record—not part of the public record, but sealed—as evidence.”  
  
Still in a state of disbelief, Xander looks up at Charlie, who shakes his head. “He's correct, love. I don't know much about the law, but I do know that what he's saying is part of the legal process. At least in the wizarding world.”  
  
“Screw the wizarding world,” Xander says softly. “I don't know why I expected better of you guys, but I did. Stupid me . . . I hope you never catch him,” he adds quietly, coldly. Harry winces.  
  
“Sooner or later, we will. Sooner or later, we catch everyone,” he replies, turning away from them and taking out his wand. “I'll see you at the Burrow.  _Apparate!_ ”  
  
Xander watches Harry disappear in a flash of light, like a lightning bolt, the backs of his eyes stinging. Then Charlie's scooping him and Jason up and carrying them to the fireplace.  
  
“I'm sorry, love. Not about Ethan Rains going to Azkaban, but about them using your memories to send him there,” he murmurs, kissing Xander's temple. Xander grabs a handful of Floo powder.  
  
“Whatever,” he mutters. Jason starts whining and licking his face. The little crup's magic power is to make Xander smile, it seems, because smile he does. Though it's not a happy one. “Your justice system's no better than Ethan. Worse, in fact. At least when  _he_  fucked me, I got something out of it.” Once they're in the fireplace, Xander throws down the powder.  
  
“The Burrow!” Charlie says, clutching him tight. Xander doesn't hesitate to do the same.  
  


*

  
  
“Charlie! Xander! There you are!” Mum exclaims when Charlie steps out of the fireplace, into the Weasley living room, carrying Xander and Jason. “And you've brought a little friend!”  
  
“Hullo, Mum,” Charlie says, putting Xander down carefully, and walking into his mother's welcoming arms. She hugs him quick and hard, then lets him go to hug Xander—careful of Jason, who licks her face and neck excitedly.  
  
Harry, who'd been standing near Mum's chair,  _Apparate_ s away just as Charlie notices him.  
  
“I've been so worried about you both since those awful articles appeared in the  _Prophet_. Really, that Skeeter-woman is just  _disgraceful_ ,” Mum says, letting go of Xander to look at him. “Oh, my dear, you look so tired and  _thin_! Have you been eating?”  
  
Xander smiles sheepishly. “Not so's you'd notice, no. It's been a very . . . trying couple of days.”  
  
“I'm sure I can't imagine, dear. Oh!” Mum cups Xander's face in her gentle hands and scans his face. “Such a handsome boy. Such a sweet face . . . such kind, innocent eyes. Don't ever let _anyone_  tell you you look like that monster, Tom Riddle.”  
  
Xander flinches, and sighs. “But Mrs.—Mum—the Med-witch said—“  
  
“Never mind that, for now, dear. What matters is getting you properly fed and rested, and if you like, after that, we can talk about what the Medi-witch said, yes? Yes.” Mum smiles kindly, and takes Jason from Xander and puts him down on the floor. Jason immediately starts sniffing the back-trail of some interesting scent or other, and soon disappears down the front hall.  
  
Meanwhile, Mum's taken Xander's arm and is leading him toward the kitchen.  
  
Charlie takes a deep breath—fills his lungs with the familiar scents of home—and follows after.  
  


*

  
  
“Would you like some more mashed potatoes, dear?”  
  
Xander sits back from the table, patting his stomach. “I think if I eat anymore, you're gonna be cleaning me off the walls of your kitchen.”  
  
“I'll have some more, Mum,” Charlie says, holding out his plate. Mrs. Weasley serves him, then serves Bill Weasley another heaping mound as well, when he holds up his plate.  
  
“Honestly, you'd think you boys never ate!” she says, but kindly. Then she's sitting back down at the head of the table to finish her own barely touched lunch.  
  
The meal had hardly been a solemn or quiet affair, as there had, indeed, been six small and not-so-small children taking part in it. The talk had revolved mostly around them and their schooling and their grades. Xander had been both horrified and fascinated at the things that came out of their mouths, and he wondered if his own son or daughter would be anything like their cousins.  
  
But after they'd finished their first helping, the children were all rushing outside to play a ground-version of Quidditch—the rules of which still confused Xander, despite Harry's careful explanation earlier.  
  
After this mass exodus, the adults had heaved simultaneous sighs of relief and set about enjoying the rest of their lunch, mostly in silence, until Mrs. Weasley started asking if anyone wanted thirds.  
  
Now, one hand resting on the table and in Charlie's, the other still on his stomach, Xander watches his fiance eat, and realizes:  _I'm going to have to learn how to cook to keep up with him. He's_ certainly _not going to be living off of house elf cooking for our entire marriage!_  
  
Charlie finishes inhaling his potatoes and glances over at Xander. Catches him staring, and smiles and winks. “See something you like?”  
  
“Maybe,” Xander replies coyly. And Charlie leans over to kiss him. He tastes like potatoes, pot roast, and fresh vegetables. “Okay,  _definitely_.”  
  
Charlie chuckles. “There's the answer I was looking for.” Then they're kissing again till Bill clears his throat. They both look up, blushing.  
  
“So, I'm the eldest, and that means I have to ask this, but: What are your intentions toward my little brother, Xander?” he says, grinning, but still somewhat serious. Even with the scars on his face and the threads of white in his hair, he's still a damned handsome man—not as handsome as Charlie, but close enough that Xander's mildly attracted to his fiance's brother.  
  
“Er, my intentions?” Xander glances at Charlie, who looks like he wants to laugh. “Um, well. I intend to marry him and start a family with him. Of course, it's not going in that exact order, since Mr. Wizard here jumped the gun, last night—“  
  
“Xand!” Charlie's turned bright red, even his ears. He squeezes Xander's hand and looks at his mother, who seems rather amused, and Bill, who seems ready to wait forever for a coherent answer. “What he means is . . . I've proposed to Xander, and he's accepted my proposal.”  
  
“Oh, how  _wonderful_!” Mrs. Weasley says, clapping her hands together. Bill, meanwhile nods approvingly.  
  
“And . . . there's other news. . . .” Charlie glances at Xander who pales, but shrugs. He supposes the Weasleys have to find out about the baby, sometime. Preferably before Xander starts . . . _showing_.  
  
He tries to smile, but mentally is preparing himself for all sorts of fallout.  
  
“Well,” Charlie begins delicately. “We're sort of—well, not  _sort of_. We  _are_  expecting a child.”  
  
“Expecting a child to what?” Bill asks, looking to his gobsmacked mother for an explanation. Then he double-takes at Xander, his eyes going to Xander's hand-covered stomach. “Hang on a moment,  _expecting a child_  as in. . . .”  
  
“Pregnant,” Xander says flatly, steeling himself for anything from curiosity to castigation. “Your brother knocked me up.”  
  
“ _With_  your tacit approval, don't forget, or else you wouldn't be pregnant,” Charlie reminds him. Xander rolls his eyes.  
  
“Yes, with my—subconscious—approval.” He elbows Charlie, and meets Bill's shocked gaze, and Mrs. Weasley's still gobsmacked one.  
  
“But,” she says, then shakes herself. “You aren't even  _married_  yet!”  
  
Xander blinks. “Uh, no. We, uh, plan on getting married sometime in the near future, I guess, but a date hasn't been set—“  
  
“The you must  _set one_  and  _keep it_!” Mrs. Weasley says sternly, leveling her fork at them like a wand. “I'll not have my youngest grandchild being born out of wedlock. Though why you decided to conceive the child  _before_  the wedding is beyond me! Honestly, you young people and your odd notions!”  
  
Charlie blushes even deeper. “We actually . . . the pregnancy wasn't planned, it just sort of . . . happened.”  
  
“How does a wizard impregnating another wizard just happen, Charlie?” Bill asks, suddenly as stern as his mother. Though he's blushing and looks a little seasick. “It takes planning and spell-work and potions—“  
  
“It, uh, didn't, in our case.” Xander looks down at his and Charlie's hands, suddenly finding them very interesting. “See, we were in the middle of—well, you know. And—“  
  
“—I just found myself saying these words out of nowhere and drawing strange runes on Xander's stomach—it was like I was being compelled by some outside force—“  
  
“—tell 'em what the words were, hon, maybe they'll recognize the spell!” Xander cuts in to say, and Charlie brightens.  
  
“Right. They just might. It was  _Esse fecundum, ferre puer meus, concepit, in amore, esse fecundum_  . . . does that sound familiar to either of you?”  
  
Bill and Mrs. Weasley share a glance, then shrug and shake their heads.  
  
“Not at all, dear.”  
  
“Doesn't sound like any spell  _I've_  ever come across.” Bill frowns. “But you say it was as if you were compelled to speak the words?”  
  
Charlie nods. “It didn't feel like something bad, like an Imperius Curse. It felt like—the best idea anyone'd ever had, only  _I'd_  had it and I had to act on it as soon as possible. Like it was a can't-miss opportunity. A once in a lifetime chance to have the best thing ever. Like. . . .” he sighs, looking at Xander who finds himself smiling and falling in love with Charlie all over again. “Like Xander and I were about to create something beautiful and amazing, entirely out of love.”  
  
Xander pulls their hands to his abdomen and smiles. “Well, whaddaya know? Turns out we did.”  
  
They smile at each other tenderly.  
  
“Well, of  _course_ , you did!” Mrs. Weasley says indulgently. Then she goes stern and motherly again. “And that's why you're getting married as soon as I can gather the family together.”  
  
Charlie's eyes widen. “The whole—but I was thinking a small, intimate ceremony—“  
  
“Small and intimate,” Xander agrees, wondering just how big the Weasley family  _is_.  
  
“But this is a joyous celebration! The last of my children finally getting married!” Mrs. Weasley's eyes tear up.  
  
“But Mum, he's been married before,” Bill chips in, and Mrs. Weasley hushes him with a wave.  
  
“Oh, piffle! I liked that Finch-Fletchly boy well enough, but he and Charlie were never going to be right for each other. He didn't make our Charlie  _happy_. Not like Xander does. Why, I've seen Charlie smile more over lunch than I have in the past ten years!” Mrs. Weasley says firmly. Then she smiles at Xander. “I've never seen Charlie so impassioned, so lively, so . . .  _happy_  as he's been over past few months. All he ever talks about is you, and how wonderful you are. How grateful I am to discover all of Charlie's boasts about you to be true.”  
  
The backs of Xander's eyes are stinging for the second time today. But for an entirely different reason, now. He finds himself blushing and smiling under Mrs. Weasley's warm regard.  
  
“She's right, you know.” Charlie kisses Xander's cheek. “You make me happier than I've ever been in my life.”  
  
“Ditto,” Xander says shakily. “I'd do it all over again—every shit decision I've made, every bad time I've had, if it meat that at the end of it all, I could be yours.”  
  
Charlie rests his forehead against Xander's. “I love you.”  
  
“I love you, too.”  
  
“Well, that's settled,” Mrs. Weasley says, sounding quite satisfied. “Now, I'm thinking possibly as soon as this Saturday, for the wedding. . . .”  
  


*

  
  
Rolling onto his back, Xander stretches and opens his eyes to unfamiliar surroundings. A small bedroom, with two beds, one of which Xander is in, and a bit cluttered, for all that it's neatly kept.  
  
_Where the hell—oh, right. The Burrow,_  he remembers, sitting up and stretching again. He pushes back the blanket and swings his legs over the side of the bed, pausing a moment before standing up. He feels still feels tired, but judging from the last of the orange-y sunset coming in through the room's single, small window, he'd slept the whole afternoon.  
  
_Already running me ragged, aren'tcha, Junior?_  he thinks, putting his hand on his abdomen, surprised to feel a wave of tenderness wash through him. The baby might yet just be a microscopic blob of protoplasmic goo, but . . . Xander  _loves_  it. It's Charlie's gift to him—Charlie's _best_  gift to him, and he loves it  _fiercely_. And he'd do anything to protect it and see it thrive.  
  
Yawning again, he tries to remember when, exactly, he'd fallen asleep—sometime while Charlie and Mrs. Weasley were going back and forth about the wedding—but can't. Though he does remember, vaguely, Charlie carrying him, not floating him, but  _carrying_  him up stairs that'd twisted and turned . . . then being placed gently on a soft bed.  
  
“I love you, Xander Harris.” And there'd been a light, lingering kiss on his forehead with that declaration. Xander had smiled and opened his eyes just in time to see Charlie turning quietly back toward the doorway.  
  
“I love you, too, Charlie Weasley.”  
  
Charlie had looked back, smiling, but Xander's eyes were already fluttering shut, too fast to stop them.  
  
Now, next thing he knows, he's awake and it's evening.  
  
His new sable-and-green robe is folded neatly on the other bed, his wand placed on top of it. Xander stands up and retrieves both, shrugging on the robe, which is surprisingly comfortable, despite being very fashionable, and puts his wand in the discreet inner holder just behind the right lapel. Then he nearly trips over a sleeping Jason on his way out the door.  
  
“C'mon, boy, time to go rejoin humanity,” he says, kneeling to pet and scratch Jason awake. The crup snorts and sniffs and opens his eyes. When he sees Xander, his forked tail wags happily and he jumps up on his hind legs to give Xander more crup-kisses.  
  
“Yuck!” Xander exclaims, laughing and patting the crup on the rump. “Okay, buddy, let's go.”  
  
In good spirits, man and crup make their way downstairs.  
  


*

  
  
“—meddling, busy-body  _bitch_!” Charlie hisses, closing and throwing down the evening edition of the  _Prophet_. It lands on the floor at his feet and he has to resist the urge to grind it underneath his boot.  
  
“Language, Charles,” Mum says, and picks the paper up, straightening it out, and looking at front page again.  
  
On it, much as Charlie had predicted, is a photo of him and Xander, in Diagon Alley, snogging. Charlie even recognizes when the photo was taken: Xander's initial bout of wand-drunkenness. In the photo, Xander's hanging off of Charlie like a limpet, kissing him passionately, both hands firmly on Charlie's arse and obviously squeezing.  
  
The headline is somehow as obnoxious as the photo:  
  
**The Dragon-Tamer, Tamed?**  
  
The byline is even more outrageous.  _Weasley Caught Snogging Riddle Look-a-Like During Diagon Shopping Spree!_  
  
“Oh, dear,” Mum sighs, shaking her head and opening the paper. Inside are even more photos of Charlie and Xander snogging or embracing, or walking hand in hand. How that Skeeter woman gets a hold of her photos—never mind her often skewed information—is beyond him. “Well, it's not the most discreet photo you've ever taken. . . .”  
  
“This is the  _last_  thing Xander and I need, right now. Especially Xander. He's not supposed to have any undue stress in his condition!” Charlie stands up and paces the area in front of the fireplace. “Merlin! We'd be better off back in Romania!”  
  
“I know, dear, I know. But for now, the Ministry wants you here.” Mum sits in her chair and folds the paper carefully. “How are you going to break the news to him, the poor boy?”  
  
Charlie snorts. “How about not at all?”  
  
“Charlie, sweetheart, it's the newspaper. You can't keep it hidden from him. And even if you could, the rest of the world will quite cheerfully spill everything you're trying so hard to keep secret.” Mum informs him, and Charlie groans.  
  
“I know, Mum. Don't you think I know that?” His groans turn into a growl. “Why can't they just—leave us alone!”  
  
“You know why, dearest.”  
  
Charlie exhales, trying to let the anger flow out on that exhalation. It doesn't work. “Because my fiance happens to bear a resemblance to Tom-bloody-Riddle, our lives are now grist for the public mill! Merlin, and if they even knew the half of it—”  
  
Mum looks at him questioningly. “What do you mean?”  
  
Taking a breath, Charlie looks into the fire as if it has the answers he needs. “Mum, Xander doesn't just . . .  _look_  like Tom Riddle . . . he is, physically, an exact copy of Tom Riddle. At least as far as the Ministry and St. Mungo's can tell.”  
  
Mum gasps softly.  
  
“He was created as part of some—screwy plan Riddle had involving his bloody horcruxes and yet another way to cheat death. But the plan didn't exactly go the way Riddle intended, and, well, Xander is the result.”  
  
When no response is forthcoming, Charlie looks at his mother. She looks . . . troubled, to say the least.  
  
“Physically, he looks like Riddle, but emotionally, ethically, character-wise . . . he couldn't be more  _different_  from Riddle. You know this—” Charlie pleads with his eyes. “You can  _feel_  it, can't you? How good a person he is?”  
  
After some consideration, Mum nods. “Yes. Of course, I can, Charlie. He's a good boy—a  _sweet_ boy. But if this gets out to the rest of the wizarding world—who knows what'll happen? What they'll try to do?”  
  
Charlie looks back at the fire. There are still no answers to be had from it. “That's why we can't let this get out. Ever. If it did . . . well, not everyone is as understanding as you are. Life would shortly become . . . hard for us, to say the least. And with the baby to worry about, and Xander's health. . . .  
  
“You can't tell anyone else, Mum. Not even Dad.”  
  
“I don't like to keep secrets from your father. . . .”  
  
“And I wouldn't ask you to if it weren't so important.” Charlie sighs, closing his eyes on the beginings of a headache. “Please.”  
  
Mum is silent for a long time before replying.  
  
“Alright, Charlie. For your sake.  _Both_  your sakes.”  
  
Charlie lets out a relieved breath. “Thank you, Mum.”  
  


*

  
  
Xander backs quietly down the hall, Jason at his heels, whining quietly.  
  
Tears sting his eyes and roll down his face as he makes his way past the winding staircase, toward the back door. He feels, quite suddenly, as if he might throw up if he doesn't get some fresh air.  
  
Once outside, he gulps air like water, till the nausea passes, then he sits on the second to last step and buries his face in his hands. Jason settles on Xander's feet, still whining unhappily.  
  
_Great, I'm even making my_ dog _miserable. This is all so fucked up,_  he thinks, sniffling.  _Why does everything I touch turn to shit? Why is the life of everyone I love, better off and easier without me in it? Am I really so like Riddle that I ruin_ everything _. . . even the people I care about?_  
  
Xander searches his soul, but finds no answers, just a great sadness where, not many minutes earlier, there'd been great joy.  
  
There's a sudden crack, like thunder, a short distance away, and Xander looks up to see a figure marching toward him in the last light of sunset. Though he can't make out a face, yet, but he'd recognize that purposeful, fearless stride, anywhere.  
  
He hurriedly wipes his eyes and watches Harry Potter approach, looking very official in his business robes, and very tired. Jason barks a quick hello and rushes over to meet Harry, who stops for just long enough to bend and pat the crup's head.  
  
“When was the last time you slept?” Xander asks out of sudden concern, when Harry's close enough that he doesn't have to raise his voice. Harry shrugs wearily.  
  
“Who can remember?” He pauses in front of Xander, looking down at him, studying him closely. Xander looks away, and Harry sighs, sitting next to him. Jason resumes his place on Xander's feet, but he's no longer whining. Instead, he watches Xander with that adoring, awe-filled look.  
  
“I'm sorry about this morning,” Harry says, after a few silent minutes have passed. Then he clarifies. “I mean I'm sorry that I said what I said, the way I said it. And  _when_  I said it.”  
  
“Oh, that.” Xander laughs a little, wiping covertly at his eyes again, but the tears keep falling. So he keeps his face turned away. “Water under the bridge. At least I can trust you to tell me the truth. Even if it hurts.”  
  
“Yes, but it's important to me that you know that I don't  _set out_  to  _hurt_  you with the truth.” Harry says intently and Xander looks over at him, tears forgotten in his surprise. Harry grimaces, and reaches out to wipe a tear from Xander's cheek. “I  _never_  want to hurt you, Xander.”  
  
“Why would my hurt feelings matter to you?” Xander challenges, and Harry looks uncomfortable for a moment. “Why, Harry?”  
  
“Well . . . we're, for all intents and purposes, family—“  
  
“And? That doesn't mean we have to give a damn about one another. I know that from experience,” Xander says bitterly.  
  
“So do I, unfortunately,” Harry's the one to look away, now. “But it's different, now. Now that I'm a part of a  _real_  family. The Weasleys have sheltered me and taken care of me. They would do anything for me. And for you, too.”  
  
“I know,” Xander says quietly, thinking of Molly Weasley's promise to her son that she'd lie—by omission, but still, lie—to her husband. “They're already doing anything for me.”  
  
“Painful, isn't it? Knowing that they're bending over backwards to do right by you, when you know you can't ever repay them for their kindness.” Harry laughs a bit ruefully, but Xander nods his agreement.  
  
“Yes,” he breathes, looking into the last of the orange sunset, then up at the purple sky above. At the faint stars twinkling indifferently in their spheres. “They make me feel so alone, sometimes” he murmurs, meaning the stars.  
  
“Yes,” Harry agrees fervently. “Sometimes, I never feel more alone than when I'm in the midst of my loving family. But it's a feeling I've gotten used to, over the years. You will, too.”  
  
Frowning, Xander looks over at Harry, uncertain how to respond to this admission. But he finds Harry looking up at the same stars, not with anger, or even bitterness or regret, but with child-like wonder that borders on delight. And in that moment, he can see the young man—even the boy Harry had once been.  
  
_Well . . . if I'd met you first, Harry Potter,_  Xander thinks with wistful surprise. But he doesn't finish the thought because they're both married— _almost_ , in Xander's case—men.  
  
And anyway, if there's one regret he  _doesn't_  have in his crazy, mixed-up life, it's meeting Charlie Weasley first.  
  
Smiling just a little at his own silliness, Xander absently lays his head on Harry's shoulder, barely noticing the way Harry stiffens. Because Harry relaxes, soon enough, and slings a protective arm about Xander's shoulders. At their feet, Jason sighs, and Xander reaches down to ruffle his scruffy fur.  
  
And for a little while, anyway, the three of them sit and gaze peacefully into the evening sky.


	20. A Wizarding Wedding (1/3)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Time to meet the Weasleys. All of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: What's to disclaim? I own nothing.

Xander wakes up at precisely six a.m. on Saturday.  
  
Blinking in the watery, early-morning light, he yawns, rubbing his eyes and feeling Charlie's half of the bed.  
  
It's empty.  
  
Of course, it is. Last night was the night before their wedding, and tradition insisted that that night be spent apart. Charlie in the house of his parents and Xander in the house of his. Only, Xander hasn't got any parents anymore, so that meant spending the night at Grimmauld place, alone.  
  
Well, not alone. Regulus and Jason had kept Xander company until late, until finally, Xander was too tired even for nerves and excitement to keep him awake, anymore.  
  
Now, Xander flops back down in his empty bed, hard, and not terribly interested in getting off by himself. “Stupid tradition,” he mutters, frustrated.  
  
“Yes, I, too, find that tradition can be an almost unbearable onus.”  
  
Xander looks over to Charlie's side of the bed. Laying there, in all his insubstantial glory, is Regulus Black. Xander grins.  
  
“And how're you, this fine morning, Reg?”  
  
Regulus sighs. “Bereft, that I shan't be able to attend the festivities.”  
  
Xander sighs, too. “I'm sorry, buddy. I'd love to have you there, sitting, however invisibly, on the Harris side of the aisle. You'd be the only—hey, how do you know you  _can't_  leave the Black premises?”  
  
Regulus, who'd been sulking up at the ceiling, looks over at Xander. “I just . . . know. It's, well, tradition. Most ghosts haunt one place and one place only. They can't . . . travel.”  
  
“Well, have you tried?”  
  
Regulus blinks slowly. “Noooo. . . .” he says, just as slowly. Then closes his eyes. “Excuse me for a moment.”  
  
And with that, he disappears.  
  
“Huh,” Xander says, sitting up, stretching and yawning again. He's just pushed back the covers and swung his feet to the floor and the comfy slippers Mrs. Weasley had transfigured for him yesterday, when Regulus reappears in front of him—startling the daylights out of him—grinning and laughing.  
  
“I just scared the bloody  _hell_  out of the Slytherin common room at Hogwarts!” he announces triumphantly. “The Bloody Baron wasn't too thrilled, but I did it! I  _went somewhere_!”  
  
His ghostly eyes alight, Regulus spins around happily, faster and faster, till Xander can't even look at him directly anymore because to do so is making him dizzy. Then Regulus comes to a sudden stop and holds his arms out to Xander. “And you, dear man, if I could kiss you, I would! If not for you, I don't think I'd  _ever_  have thought to even  _try_!”  
  
Xander smiles a little. “Hey, sometimes it takes an outside perspective. You're welcome. Uh . . . think you might like to come to a wedding today?”  
  


*

  
  
Xander follows the morning routine of the past three days with little deviation:  
  
He lets Tawny out to do her business and pick up the mail and newspaper—for the past three days, thankfully, he hasn't been in it, except for an article wondering where he'd disappeared to after such a copious display earlier in the week—and lays out treats for her return.  
  
Then he feeds himself and Jason in the kitchen and, when nature takes its course, cleans up the newspapers Jason uses. Then he hops in the shower to clean off. Granted, he could easily _Scourgify_ , but he loves the feel of the hot water. And usually, Charlie's showering with him, so the amount of fun to be had is somewhere in the range of  _epic_.  
  
Once clean, he dresses in the simple, but elegant tuxedo and shoes he'd purchased yesterday in Muggle London—with Ethan's AmEx and Harry by his side (after this final purchase, he'd cut all of Ethan's cards into little pieces). Finally, he brushes his hair till it's hanging neat and shiny, past his shoulders.  
  
A look in the mirror confirms that yes, for once, Xander Harris is looking  _fine_ , indeed.  
  
Now, the hard part. Waiting for Harry—who'd not come back home after dropping Xander off last night—to pick him up and take him to the Burrow via something called the  _Knight Bus_. . . .  
  
“You look smashing, old chap!” Regulus says, appearing out of nowhere, giving Xander a start and grinning like the cat that got the canary. Who knows where he's been? In fact, Xander's pretty sure he  _doesn't_  want to know, based on that smile. If only for plausible deniability.  
  
“Thanks.” Xander brushes a few crup hairs off the arm of his tuxedo. “Just waiting for Harry to come squire me hence.”  
  
“If you like, I can go find out where he is—haven't been to the Ministry since I was alive. I wonder how it's changed,” Regulus muses. Then, before Xander can answer, he's gone again.  
  
When he returns, a quarter of an hour later, he's breathing fast, for someone who doesn't need to breathe at all. “Potter's on his way here—he was tidying up his office, last I saw. Do you know how short ladies' skirts have  _become_ , in the intervening forty years?”  
  
Xander blinks. “Uh—“  
  
“Well,  _you_  may not have noticed, being a poofter and all, but by Merlin!” Regulus sighs happily. “It was like a sea of ladies' legs, Xander. Like I was inhabiting one of Sirius's wet dreams.”  
  
“That's . . . descriptive. . . .”  
  
“And all the Floos! So many Floos to so many different places . . . even to specific shops in Diagon Alley! I know a lot of that's the Potter-boy's doing. He'd stay here for weeks at a time when he was trying to get Diagon Alley up to code. Dunno why—if I had a wife as pretty as that Ginny Weasley, it'd be a job of work getting me out of the house most days.” Regulus sighs again. “Will  _she_  be at the wedding, too? Of course she will. Her brother's getting married . . . you don't mind if I skip ahead to the Weasley homestead, do you?”  
  
“Uh . . . no?”  
  
“Capital!” Regulus fades out again. The last thing to go, like the Cheshire Cat, is his big, smitten grin.  
  
“My life is filled with strange conversations with strange people,” Xander tells a napping Jason. One pointed ear twitches toward him, but otherwise the crup doesn't respond.  
  
Harry arrives shortly after that, looking rather worse for wear. But he perks up when Xander steps into the hall, smiling.  
  
“You look. . . .” Harry says, giving him rather gratifying elevator eyes. Xander preens. “Different.”  
  
“Yeah, I clean up nice, don't I?” Xander laughs. “I'll be you do, too. Here.” Xander takes Harry's briefcase and the business robes draped over his arm and starts toward the stairs. When harry doesn't follow, Xander glances over his shoulder to see the gobsmacked—for some reason—wizard staring after him, mouth open, eyes wide and round behind his smudgy glasses. “C'mon, Harry. You have just enough time to shower, shave, and put on your fanciest duds. Are you hungry? I can ask Kreacher to make you something while you shower, and it'll be hot and ready when you're done so you can eat on the fly.”  
  
“Er.” Harry hurriedly catches up to him. “That'd be lovely. Thanks.”  
  
“Not a problem.” Xander looks over at Harry to find him staring steadfastly at the steps under his feet. “So, how was work? Besides long and exhausting, that is?”  
  
Harry glances up at Xander and smiles a little. “The same as it ever is. Investigations, the catching of bad guys, testifying before the Wizengamot.” He makes a face, then it clears into something a bit more pleasant. “Oh, and we've identified the boy that was assisting Herr Krakauer with your birth. I thought you might want to know his name.” Harry pauses when he realizes he's alone on the third floor landing.  
  
Xander, who'd frozen a few steps before the landing, is gazing up at Harry with wide eyes.  
  
“Yes, I— _yes_ ,” he says softly, and Harry smiles.  
  
“His name is Jakob. Jakob Krakauer.”  
  
Xander returns the smile . . . the his brow furrows. “So he was Herr Krakauer's . . . son? Grandson?”  
  
“Nephew, from what we've been able to gather.” Harry's smile fades, too. “Unfortunately, we found no record of Jakob's parents after Jakob's seventh year. We presume they're . . . dead.”  
  
“God, that poor kid.” Xander hangs his head. “To lose his parents, then his uncle . . . and be saddled with the baby of his uncle's killer . . . to do what he did for me. . . .” he wipes his eyes. He's been tearing up a lot over the past few days. He can only hope it's pregnancy hormones.  
  
“We're doing our best to find him,” Harry says, coming back down the stairs to join Xander. He puts a tentative hand on the small of Xander's back, urging him on. At this prompting, Xander starts moving again. “He may be able to give us some insight into what Riddle was planning to do with you, and how you were created.”  
  
Xander nods. “I feel like Frankenstein.” He laughs a little. “ _Created_.”  
  
“All babies require a little magic to get made. Some just need more magic than others. Think of yourself as  _special_ ,” Harry adds.  
  
 _Yeah, I'm special, alright_ , Xander thinks, but doesn't say. At any rate, they've reached the third floor loo—safe and usable, since Harry finally relented, and got rid of whatever thing was living in there, and Kreacher went in and  _cleaned_ —which has become Harry's loo, with the loo on the second floor belonging now exclusively to Xander and Charlie.  
  
“So, I'll make this quick, shall I?” Harry says, leaning in the doorway. Xander smiles.  
  
“Depends on how fast this Knight Bus can get us to the Burrow.”  
  
Harry's sudden grin is distubringly . . . disturbing. “Oh, speed isn't the chief worry with the Knight Bus.”  
  
Xander frowns again. “Then what  _is_  the chief worry? Harry?  _Harry_!”  
  
He's talking to nothing but door.  
  


*

  
  
“Charlie?”  
  
Charlie rolls onto his side, away from the annoying voice and toward's Xander's warm back, his hand immediately seeking out Xander's abdomen. . . .  
  
Only, Xander's side of the bed is empty.  
  
“Charlie, wake up—gotta start getting ready for your wedd—“  
  
But Charlie's already sitting up, rubbing his eyes and looking around. He's not, of course, at Grimmauld Place, but at the Burrow, in the old room he shared with Bill, once upon a time.  
  
It is Bill, in fact, who's woken him up.  
  
Bill, who's smirking and pointing at Charlie's lap.  
  
“Best take care of  _that_  before the ceremony,” he says, snickering like a bloody third year. Charlie looks down at his laps and blushes, piling the sheets up over the rampant morning wood that's usually taken care of happily—oh, so expertly—by Xander.  
  
“At least I can still get it up in the morning, old man,” he retorts, and Bill pulls an offended face.  
  
“Only a couple years older than you, please and thank you!”  
  
“And that makes all the difference, doesn't it.” Charlie sticks his tongue out. “Now get out, and let me get ready in peace.”  
  
With a bit more ribbing, Bill does exactly that. And Charlie flops back down to his old bed and considers wanking—wouldn't be the first time in this bed. But then he decides to wank in the shower. Though it'll be a lonely shower without Xander. And a quick one.  
  
Sighing and throwing back the covers, he retrieves his wand and gets up. A glance at the mirror shows his reflection still laying abed and most definitely starting to wank.  
  
 _Some people_ , Charlie thinks, grabbing his bathrobe and putting it on. As an adult, he's always slept in the nude, weather permitting. A habit that hasn't changed just for having spent a night at the Burrow.  
  
Though admittedly, without Xander, that night had seemed to last forever. Charlie hadn't gotten to sleep till nearly four in the morning.  
  
But Mum had  _insisted_  on a traditional wedding, and that included the spouses-to-be sleeping in the homes of their parents the night before that wedding.  
  
Xander had spent the night at the Black house—probably without Harry, a chronic workaholic, to keep him company.  
  
 _Well, as least he has Jason to keep him from getting too bored. And to protect him._  Charlie smiles, imagining the crup defending Xander against whatever menaces still linger in that house.  
  
Once in the hall, he can hear the ruckus of furniture being moved downstairs, and his mother's voice guiding it all. Mum's probably recruited Bill, Charlie's nieces and nephews, Dad, and some of the neighbors to help get things ready.  
  
Smiling to himself, Charlie quickly makes his way into the loo, before he, too, can be drafted. He doesn't need all the decoration and silliness to make his wedding day complete. All he needs is a wizard who can perform the wedding rites—Percy, who'd thankfully, for the sake of tact,  _not_ officiated at Charlie's first wedding—and Xander.  
  
Though in a pinch, he'd say bugger the rites, and just take Xander.  
  


*

  
  
“Well. Here we are.”  
  
Xander practically falls off the Knight Bus and into Harry's waiting arms. “Urgh.”  
  
“I gotcha, mate.”  
  
“I think I'm gonna hurl. . . .”  
  
“No, no, you're not going to . . . to  _hurl_ ,” Harry says, waving the Knight Bus on its way. When it's gone, he helps Xander straighten up. Jason barks and runs around their feet. “You do look a little pale, however.”  
  
“Oh,  _do_  I look a little pale?” Xander groans, both hands going to his roiling stomach. Luckily he's brought some concentrated ginger-root tablets (chewable) with him in one of the robe's many pockets. “After that relaxing little jaunt, I can't imagine  _why_  I would look pale.”  
  
“Now, now, don't be sarcastic, Xander. I told you the Knight Bus would get us here quickly.”  
  
“Yes, but you forgot to add  _barely alive_ ,” Xander huffs, rubbing his abdomen. “My baby's DNA is probably effectively scrambled.”  
  
“Baby Weasley has not been  _scrambled_.” Harry rolls his eyes, puts a hand on the small of Xander's back, and starts walking. Xander grumbles, but keeps up as they step off the main road and onto a two-track lane that wades bravely into some chest-high grass. Jason races off into the grass with an excited growl. “He's perfectly fine.”  
  
“He'd better be.”  
  
Harry laughs. “So, with all this  _he_  business . . . do you already know the sex of the baby? Isn't it too early to know?”  
  
Xander digs around in his pockets for the ginger-root tablets, finds them, and pops three, just in case. He doesn't want to throw up in the middle of the ceremony. “It is. But Charlie's always refering to the baby as  _he_ , and it kinda caught on . . . huh, won't we be surprised if he's a girl?”  
  
“Or twins,” Harry says, and Xander shudders, imagining double the late night feedings, double the crying, double the diaper-duty.  
  
“Bite your tongue,” he says sharply, and Harry laughs again. Beneath their feet, the two-track road ends and becomes a plain dirt track. “Hey, are you sure you know where we're going?”  
  
“Absolutely. Granted, I don't usually come to the Burrow this way—“  
  
“If we get lost out here, on my wedding day, Harry Potter—“  
  
“Ah! See? Dead ahead and to the right a little. The Burrow.”  
  
Xander follows Harry's pointing and does, indeed, see a tall, unstable-looking structure in the distance. Something that could only possibly be keep upright by magic. “ _That's_  what it looks like from the outside?!”  
  
Harry's lips twitch. “Admittedly it doesn't look terribly stable. . . .”  
  
“No  _wonder_  it creaks all the time! Every time I leaned against a wall or ran down the stairs, there'd be all these loud creaking sounds. Hell, every time the  _wind blew_ , there'd be loud creaking sounds!” Xander shakes his head and finds himself smiling. “Molly Weasley must be one hell of a witch to keep that thing standing.”  
  
“She is, at that. But it's not any wand that keeps the Burrow standing.”  
  
“Then what does? Wishes?”  
  
“Close,” Harry urges Xander on faster with another gentle touch to the small of his back. The Burrow is still about a quarter of a mile away. “If I had to guess, I'd say it's all the love and care that's gone into it, and all the happiness it's seen.”  
  
Xander finds himself tearing up again.  _Damn hormones_. “A house held together literally by love. That's . . . a beautiful idea.”  
  
Harry grins. “Isn't it?”  
  
He and Harry continue on, arms brushing, in a comfortable silence, lost in their thoughts, until they can hear the sounds of children's laughter and people talking. Harry smiles wistfully. “That'll be the family. I'm certain they'll all be thrilled to meet you.”  
  
Xander sighs. “I'll be thrilled to meet them, I'm sure, if a little—no, a  _lot_  nervous.”  
  
“Oh, there's nothing to be nervous about. They're all very much Weasleys, to a greater or lesser extent. Which means that you're already family in their eyes. They just haven't got to know you, yet.” Harry smiles over at Xander. “C'mon. Nothing for it but to wade in.”  
  
Xander nods, rubbing his abdomen one more time—those ginger-root tablets had indeed, worked like magic—and striding forward with his shoulders back and his chin up.  
  
Time to meet the Weasleys. All of them.


	21. A Wizarding Wedding (2/3)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Time to meet the Weasleys. All of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: What's to disclaim? I own nothing.

Only . . . Xander doesn't get to meet all of the Weasleys one at a time. No. They all mob and swarm him, soon separating him from Harry. Harry merely laughs and waves at Xander (who does  _not_  find it funny). Then Xander's awash in a see of redheads and auburnheads, all wanting to shake his hands and exchange names and life stories.  
  
Some of them, he recognizes from Romania, after the Ironbelly Incident, of course, and they greet him like an old friend, even the initially stand-offish Percy.  
  
“A fine day for nuptials, is it not?” he asks brightly, looking very magisterial in his cream and gold robes. He makes Xander, who'd felt pretty spiffy before, in his tux and black-with-gold-and-silver-trim robe, feel positively under-dressed. “And I must say, you look marvelous.”  
  
“Oh, not as marvelous as you,” Xander replies, taking a hand that's been thrust in front of his face and shaking it. Then another. Then another. Compliments on his handsome robes and “Muggle-style” tuxedo abound, as do compliments on his familiar, who'd apparently arrived some minutes before Xander and Harry had.  
  
“Uh, where's Charlie?” Xander finally asks, when the crowd of Weasleys thins a little, and he can see the backyard more clearly. It's really just a large field that goes on forever, it seems. Perfect, he's been told, for flying around on one's broom or for playing Quidditch.  
  
But today, there are trestle tables with food on them, and beyond those tables, many chairs in rows and an aisle halving them. At the head of the aisle is Mrs. Weasley, transfiguring something into . . . something else. Probably another chair  
  
If anyone'd know where Charlie was. . . .  
  
Xander politely, desperately, frees himself of the remaining crowd of Weasleys and jogs over to Mrs. Weasley. “Mrs.—uh—Mum!” he calls as he goes. Half-way to her, a sudden barking sounds at his heels.  
  
He glances back and down. “Nice of you to join me, oh, familiar, mine.”  
  
Jason barks up at him, as if in agreement.  
  
“Yes, dear?” Mrs. Weasley looks up as, indeed, she straightens the chair—the final one, it looks like, and puts her wand away in her floral robes.  
  
“Wow! You look great!” Xander says, leaning in to hug her and kiss her cheek. She squeezes him tight—where Charlie inherited  _his_  hugs from, obviously, as Mr. Weasley, or  _Dad_ , hugs Xander as if surprised to be getting a hug at all—and kisses both his cheeks ringingly.  
  
“Why, thank you, Xander! And my, don't you look very handsome, today? Even more so than usual. Charlie will be bowled over when he sees you,” she adds warmly, brushing some crup hairs—where are they coming from? He hasn't picked up Jason since he put on the tux and robes—off his lapel.  
  
“Speaking of my future hubby . . . where is he?”  
  
“He's waiting in the kitchen—oh, no, you're not to see him till you're walking down the aisle toward him!” Mrs. Weasley says, stopping Xander with a touch to the elbow when he would have gone straight to the back door. “Now, you're to go wait in the living room for Harry to come get you and walk you down the aisle. That should be in no more than ten minutes, since almost everyone who could come is here and more than ready for the ceremony to start.”  
  
Xander sighs. He knows that feeling. Not that he's anxious for the wedding to be over, he's just . . . anxious to be with Charlie again.  
  
“Off you go, now! We'll have Charlie out here, any second to take his place! Shoo!”  
  
And with that, Mrs. Weasley gives him a gentle shove in the direction from which he'd just come.  
  
“Yes, Mum,” Xander mutters, dragging his feet toward the front of the house. Jason follows him, getting pets and coos as they go.  
  
_Ten more minutes_ , Xander tells himself, shaking a few more hands and exchanging salutations with a few Weasley's he'd somehow missed.  _Just ten more minutes and . . . I'll officially be a part of this crazy, wackadoo family_.  
  
Smiling just a little, Xander makes his way to the front of the house. Though when he passes the garden, he could swear he sees something that looks like some sort of . . . mutant potato disappear among the cabbages.  
  


*

  
  
Charlie, sitting bored in the kitchen, uncomfortable in his nicest wizarding suit and his father's transfigured wedding robes—white with red-and-orange trim and rather enlarged to accommodate Charlie's larger build—knows by the migration of most of the family from the backyard, towards the front of the house, that Xander and Harry have arrived.  
  
He nearly goes running out there, himself—it feels as if he hasn't seen Xander in ages, not just seventeen hours, or so—but reminds himself of his mother's threats to stay inside till she calls him.  
  
Sighing, Charlie gets up and goes to the window to see if he can get a glimpse of Xander . . . but someone's back is blocking the view from the window above the kitchen sink.  
  
Charlie's just crept out to the back door and is about to open it, risking his mother's wrath, when he hears the front door open and close, and a familiar bark.  
  
Followed by a more than familiar voice murmuring something in reply to the bark.  
  
Heart racing, Charlie goes quietly back down the hall, past the kitchen, toward the living room.  
  
“—is it that you're getting hair all over my robes and tux when I've barely touched you, today, huh? How is that? Silly puppy,” Xander's saying when Charlie gets to the living room entyway. He's about to go around the corner and surprise Xander, when something stops him.  
  
_Tradition . . . bugger that,_  he thinks sourly, grimly. But still he doesn't even so much as peer around the lintel.  
  
It's really intolerable. And stupid. And . . . traditional. No seeing each other before the ceremony.  
  
Then again . . . tradition never said anything about the spouses-to-be not  _talking_  to each other before the nuptials.  
  
Smiling, Charlie leans against the wall and says, softly, so as not to startle: “Oi, Xand?”  
  
Sudden silence. Then: “ _Charlie_?”  
  
“The one and only.” Charlie hears the rustle of cloth as Xander starts to come out into the hall. “No! We can't see each other, just yet . . . but I figure we can at least talk a little.”  
  
“Charlie . . . this tradition is stupid. . . .” Xander whines, but doesn't come any closer. “I wanna _see_  you and hold you.”  
  
“I know, but . . . in for a knut, in for a galleon, I suppose. We've waited this long—“  
  
“It feels like forever!”  
  
“Yes, it does,” Charlie puts his hand on the wall, fingers splayed, wishing it was Xander's abdomen. “But it'll be worth the wait. I'll bet you look radiant.”  
  
He can almost hear Xander blush. “Not as radiant as you, I'm thinking.”  
  
“Pah, I  _look_  like a large slice of iced carrot cake in these robes.”  
  
Xander snickers. “Lucky for you, then, that I  _love_  carrot cake.”  
  
“And I love you.”  
  
Silence again, then: “I wanna kiss you so bad, right now.”  
  
“Me, too.”  
  
More rustling, and this time, when Xander speaks, it's from right on the other side of the wall. “I can't wait till our wedding night,” he says quietly. “I can't wait to have you on top of me, fucking me, making me  _beg_  for more. . . .”  
  
Charlie bites his lip and thinks of Ottery St. Catchpole. “A hard-on is almost impossible to hide in this suit and these robes, love.”  
  
Chuckling, Xander's voice gets just a little bit closer. “And Mum  _did_  say that she'd be calling for you in a little bit to take your place.” He sighs. “God, I'm so nervous . . . but I can't wait to walk down that aisle to you.”  
  
Nodding, Charlie smiles, even though Xander can't see it. “I can't wait to see you walking toward me. Can't wait to see that ring on your finger.”  
  
There's a quiet gasp. “Shit!”  
  
“What?”  
  
“I forgot to buy a ring!”  
  
Charlie's brow furrows. “ _Buy_  a wedding ring?”  
  
“Well, yeah. Unless you know of another way to get a wedding ring.”  
  
“Actually, I do—you mean to tell me Muggles have to  _buy_  their wedding rings?”  
  
“Of course! Unless they're also jewelry makers on the side, and can  _make_  their own wedding rings.” Xander snorts. “How were you expecting to get wedding rings, if not from a jewelry store?”  
  
Charlie's smile widens. “Hmm. I think I'll leave that for a surprise.”  
  
“No! Weddings plus surprise does  _not_  usually equal happyfun-times!”  
  
Laughing, Charlie leans as close to the edge of the lintel as he dares. “But this time, it will. I swear.”  
  
“But—“  
  
“ _Charlie_!”  
  
Starting, Charlie moves reluctantly away from the lintel. “That'll be Mum. I have to go.”  
  
“Oh—okay,” Xander sounds so bereft, it hurts Charlie's heart.  
  
“But we'll be seeing each other soon, love. Remember?”  
  
“Yeah, I remember.” That bereft quality leaves Xander's voice. “Just—promise me I won't make a mistake that'll embarrass us in front of your family or otherwise ruin the wedding.”  
  
“You won't, love. And it's  _our_.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“ _Our family_.”  
  
Charlie can hear that sweet smile dawning in Xander's next words. “Oh, yeah. Right.”  
  
“Speaking of our family . . . how's he doing?”  
  
Xander's the one to chuckle, this time. “Hopefully, Junior's no worse for wear, after a ride on the Knight Bus.”  
  
“Blimey! Harry brought you here on  _that_  crazy-bloody-thing?!”  
  
“Not my words, exactly, but close enough. I wanted to strangle him.”  
  
“ _I_  want to strangle him!” Charlie declares. “I thought he'd be bringing you in a Muggle automobile! What was he  _thinking_?”  
  
“Except for some nausea, I was fine, Charlie. I  _am_  fine. So is the baby.” After a moment, a hand reaches around the lintel. Xander's hand. Charlie takes it in his own and squeezes it. Xander allows this for a few moments before pulling Charlie's hand back around the lintel, where it comes in contact with a familiar, as yet flat, cloth-covered plane.  
  
“We're both fine,” Xander says as Charlie rubs his abdomen gently, tenderly. This lasts until Mum calls again, this time sounding much closer to the house.  
  
“Will you and the baby take my name?” Charlie asks quickly, not intending it to come out at all. But apparently his mouth has other ideas.  
  
Xander laughs. “ _That_ 's the last thing you wanna ask me before we're married?”  
  
“Well, it seems pretty important. . . .” Charlie's hand drifts a little further south, where the rubbing is equally good. Xander laughs again, catching Charlie's hand and pulling it up to his face for a kiss.  
  
“You don't have to  _convince me_ , Charlie. The baby was always gonna be a Weasley. As for me . . . since I'm not really a Harris anymore—never was, I guess—I don't see why I shouldn't go Weasley all the way.” Xander sighs, as happy a sound as it is melancholy. “Alexander Lavelle _Weasley_  . . . how's that sound?”  
  
“Like a dream come true, to me.” Elated, Charlie ghosts his fingers across Xander's lips then reluctantly pulls his hand away. “See you out there, Mr. Weasley?”  
  
“Beyond all doubt, Mr. Weasley.”  
  
Then Charlie's jogging down the hall, past the kitchen and out the back door, grinning so big, his mother looks very suspicious, but goes to her seat. Most of the family have settled into their own seats, irrespective of aisle. It's a show of solidarity Charlie doesn't miss, and doesn't think his future husband will miss, either.  
  
_Future husband_ , he thinks, bemusedly, disbelievingly.  
  
“ _I'm getting married, today!_ ” he suddenly shouts at the top of his lungs, and after a moment of surprise, everyone claps and cheers.  
  
Charlie makes his way to where Percy is standing, shaking hands and getting clapped on the back all the way.  
  
“Admit it: You snuck and saw Xander just now, didn't you?” George, one of the groom's men, asks in a not very quiet whisper.  
  
“Xander and I haven't so much as made eye contact since last night. By Merlin, we haven't.” Charlie swears piously. George whistles, his eyebrows shooting up.  
  
“Then you're doing better than Angelina and I did. Although . . . you don't need to  _see_  each other to have a little fun.” Cue that annoying smirk. Charlie rolls his eyes and looks away, trying not to blush.  
  
George laughs until Bill, the best man, elbows him silent.  
  
Percy, looking very official in his robes and with his curly hair ruthlessly tamed, merely glares at them all until they apologize and stand up straight, clearing their throats.  
  
But Charlie can't quite keep the grin off his face.  
  


*

  
  
Xander's still leaning against the wall, smiling, when Hary comes to get him.  
  
“Have you snuck and seen Charlie?” he asks sternly. Xander looks up and smiles even wider.  
  
“Nope.”  
  
Harry shoots him a disbelieving look and Xander holds up his hands. “Honest Injun. No seeing of the soon-to-be hubby!”  
  
“Well, alright, then,” Harry finally says, approaching Xander and offering his arm like an old-fashioned gentleman. “Time to greet your adoring public.”  
  
Xander rolls his eyes, but takes Harry's arm. Jason follows them outside, forked tail wagging.  
  


*

  
  
Charlie's adjusting his robes and suit for the umpteenth time when George nudges him.  
  
“Your bride approacheth, brother.”  
  
Saving his glare for later, Charlie immediately looks toward the front of the Burrow. And indeed, rounding the corner on Harry's arm, is Xander. And he looks . . . he  _looks_. . . .  
  
Well, Charlie's still trying to think of a word that does Xander justice when he and Harry reach the head of the aisle, and Harry presents Xander to him like a gift. Xander, smiling a tad nervously, takes his place across from Charlie and also takes Charlie's outstretched hands. Harry—doing double duty as father-of-the-groom and as the other best man—takes his place opposite Bill.  
  
But Charlie only sees this out of the corner of his eye. His gaze, once it met Xander's, has gone nowhere else.  
  
_I love you,_  Xander mouths as Percy starts speaking. Charlie grins.  
  
_I love you, more_.  
  
Throughout Percy's speech—a bit long-winded, but ultimately rather touching—about the bonds of love and magic, he and Xander simply stare into each other's eyes and grin quite idiotically.  
  
But sooner than Charlie expects, Percy has his wand out. “ _Magicae testantur._ ” He swishes his wand once and the very tip of it begins to glow.  
  
“Do you, Charles Sebastus Weasley, take Alexander for your lawful wedded husband, to live in the blessed estate of matrimony? Will you love, honor, comfort, and cherish him from this day forward, forsaking all others, keeping only unto him for as long as you both shall live?”  
  
Charlie looks steadily into Xander's eyes and nods once. “I do. With all my heart.”  
  
Xander's eyes acquire a noticeably brighter shine to them, and he blinks quickly, squeezing Charlie's hands.  
  
 “And do you, Alexander Lavelle Harris, take Charles for your lawful wedded husband, to live in the blessed estate of matrimony? Will you love, honor, comfort, and cherish him from this day forward, forsaking all others, keeping only unto him for as long as you both shall live?”  
  
“I do,” Xander says without breaking their gazes. “With every fiber of my being.”  
  
Percy nods. “Now, hold up your right hands and repeat after me, both of you: With this ring, I, thee wed.”  
  
“With this ring, I, thee wed,” Charlie says, and Xander says, too, but his smile suddenly turns quite nervous. But before he can say or do anything quintessentially  _Xander_ , Percy's pointing his wand at their joined hands.  
  
“ _Magicae alligantibus et magicae custódi hanc unionem._ ” Percy swishes and flicks his wand fancily, but precisely, touching the tip first to Charlie's ring finger, then to Xander's. With a warm tingle, a simple ring of electrum appears on Charlie's finger. Then another one appears on Xander's. Xander gasps and turns their hands over, as if check to see that the rings go all the way around, then looks at Percy, then at Charlie, obviously gobsmacked.  
  
“ _Cool_ ,” he breathes quietly, and Charlie, in that moment, falls in love with him all over again.  
  
“I wear this ring as a symbol of our love, and commitment,” Percy says pointedly, and Charlie and Xander quickly repeat that, too—Xander grinning wryly and still stealing glances at his ring.  
  
****** “May this couple be prepared to continue to give, be able to forgive and experience more and more joy with each passing day, with each passing year. Charles and Alexander are now beginning their married life together, we hope that they may have loving assistance from their family, the constant support of friends, and a long life with good health and everlasting love. In so much as Charles and Alexander have consented to live forever together in wedlock, and have witnessed the same before this company, having given and pledged their troth, each to the other, and having declared same by the giving and receiving of a ring, I pronounce that they are now joined in the bonds of matrimony. You may now kiss your husband.”  
  
And like magic— _haha_ —white and pink flower petals begin to fall from the sky on the wedding party and the guests, who've stood up and started cheering and clapping and chanting: “ _Kiss him! Kiss him! Kiss him!_ ”  
  
Xander glances at Percy, then back at Charlie.  _That's it?_  he mouths. Charlie nods, grinning.  
  
_Yep. We're married, now_ , he mouths back, and Xander grins wickedly.  
  
“In that case,” he says, and flings himself at Charlie, kissing him good and hard. And thoroughly. And for quite some time. Charlie wraps his arms around Xander's waist and picks him up, turning a full circle with him before putting him down. At no point do they even show signs of being about to stop kissing.  
  
“Er, you can stop snogging, now,” Percy mutters through a pasted on, slightly embarrassed grin. To no response. “Charlie? Xander? You can  _stop_ , now . . .honestly, you two! That's what the honeymoon's for!”  
  
They still don't stop kissing—nor does the family stop cheering—for another two minutes.  
  


*

  
  
Xander surfaces from the kiss panting and laughing, aware that Charlie's doing the same.  
  
Their foreheads still touching, Xander steals another quick kiss, and sighs. “I love you, Charlie Weasley.”  
  
“I love  _you_  Xander Weasely.”  
  
Xander shivers and Charlie hugs him closer. They turn their heads just enough to see the family still cheering, though it's begun to taper off.  
  
“So . . . we're married.”  
  
Charlie kisses his cheek. “That, we are, love.”  
  
“So, what do we do, now?”  
  
Grinning, Charlie cups Xander's face in his hands and looks him in the eyes. “We live happily ever after, that's what we do. You, me, and little. . . .”  
  
“Jakob,” Xander says suddenly, and Charlie's eyebrows shoot up. Xander blushes, and wants to explain, but doesn't feel right now is the time. So he simply contents himself with nodding and repeating the name.  
  
“Jakob Weasley. . . I like that. You, me, and little Jakob, we live happily ever after.” Charlie grins hopefully. “Maybe in a few years, we could give him a little brother or sister to play with.”  
  
Xander rolls his eyes. “Let's just get through  _this_  unplanned pregnancy first, before we un-plan another. Deal?”  
  
“Aw, Xand, but they're so much fun to  _make_.” Laughing, Charlie busses Xander's forehead. “Alright, one child at a time. Unless we're having twins, that is. . . .”  
  
“What  _is_  it with you and Harry?” Xander demands, but he can't keep a straight face. “I am  _not_ having twins.”  
  
“With magic, anything is possible, love.” Charlie sighs wistfully. “Might even be triplets.”  
  
“Just for that, you're getting a faceful of wedding cake,” Xander says with real asperity. Charlie kisses his cheek again.  
  
“Whatever you say, dear.”  
  
Then, hand in hand, they make their way toward their waiting family and friends—Xander notices, with surprise, that both Kingsley Shacklebolt and Mad-Eye are included in this crowd, the former in his snazziest robes, the latter dressed as if he's going back to work after the ceremony (and he probably is)—covered in rose petals and followed by their wedding party, including a very self-satisfied Percy.  
  
Mr. and Mrs Weasley are the first to greet them with hugs and kisses. For the first time ever, Xander feels like he's a welcome part of a family, not just like he landed someplace where they _had_  to take care of him, so they did. Marginally. With a only a modicum of emphasis on the  _care_ part.  
  
He feels like he's  _home_ , for the first time in his life.  
  
“Welcome to the family, son,” Mr. Weasley says, giving his hand a shake. Xander nods and smiles, blinking away tears.  
  
“Thank you, Mr.—Dad.”  
  
Charlie's arm slips around his waist, and Mrs. Weasley tears up, hugging him again, and this moment, right now, is the best moment of Xander's life.  
  
He savors it, storing it up against a not-so-perfect past and future that's filled with many possibilities.


	22. A Wizarding Wedding (3/3)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Time to meet the Weasleys. All of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: What's to disclaim? I own nothing.

The reception is as rowdy and fun as Xander expects, what with so many Weasleys in attendance.  
  
There's more food that any one hundred hungry people—and that's how many Weasleys there seem to be, to Xander—could eat in any one day. Plenty of fire whisky, wine, and beer going around. Xander declines so many times that an already tipsy George declares, at the top of his lungs, that “the blushing bride” must be in the “family way” since he's being such a teetotaler.  
  
This to general laughter and many jokes about wand-point weddings and the like. Charlie and Xander look at each other, shrug, and smile.  
  
“They'll figure it out on their own. When you start to show,” Charlie murmurs, kissing Xander's robed shoulder. Xander laughs, blushing.  
  
“Think we should just tell them now? Before it somehow winds up in the  _Daily Prophet_?” he asks. Charlie looks at him, surprised.  
  
“Tell them all  _now_? But I thought you were still . . . weirded out, as you might say. About being pregnant.”  
  
“Oh, believe me, hon, I'm still  _very much_  weirded out about it,” Xander says, chuckling. “You have no idea how weirded out I still am, but . . . I'm not ashamed, or embarrassed or wanting it to be this big secret.” He takes Charlie's hand and places it on his abdomen, looking into his eyes and smiling. “This is  _our child_. And I may be weirded out, but I'm also proud, and happier than I ever thought I'd be. And I love you, and I love Jakob. More than anything in the world.”  
  
Charlie swallows and smiles. “Oh, love.” He leans in and kisses Xander to general applause and hooting noises. They break the kiss laughing, and Charlie stands up, pulling Xander with him. Then he raises his hands to get everyone's attention.  
  
“It seems there's been some speculation,” he begins once everyone quiets down as much as they're going to. “About why my husband is abstaining from alcohol, on this festive occasion. And Xander and I just want to address those rumors by saying—“ Charlie turns to Xander, who throws worry to the wind, puts a hand on his abdomen and grins.  
  
“So far, we're going with  _Jakob_ , if the baby's a boy,” he announces, and Charlie covers Xander's hand with his own. For a few moments there's almost perfect silence.  
  
Then another cheer goes up from the other tables, and even George puts down his glass to hoot and holler and applaud.  
  
Xander and Charlie grin, lost in each other's eyes. By the time they find their way back out, there's a line of Weasleys waiting at their table to offer their congratulations and their blessings.   
  
The first in line, in fact, is Harry Potter. He's smiling, and when he offers his hand for shaking to Charlie, Charlie takes the hand and pulls him in for a bear hug. “Thank you, mate. For everything.”  
  
“Glad to help, Charlie.” They let go of each other and smile, clapping each other's backs. Then Harry turns to Xander, who holds out his arms. Harry goes into them and hugs him tight. “And you . . . it's definitely been an interesting ride so far . . . knowing you, that is.”  
  
“I could say the same, Harry.”  
  
When they let go of each other, Harry looks Xander over, eyes lingering at abdomen level. “So . . . Jakob, huh?”  
  
Xander blushes and smiles, patting his abdomen. “It just . . . feels right. To honor him for all he did for me.” He shrugs, and Harry tilts his head.  
  
“And if he's a girl?”  
  
“Then Charlie gets to worry about coming up with a name for her,” Xander says, waving a hand dismissively. Harry laughs.  
  
Charlie, who'd been shaking hands with and thanking Kingsley Shacklebolt, glances over his shoulder, and asks: “Oi, Harry, where's that sister of mine? I thought she'd be here.”  
  
Harry stops laughing like his throat's been cut and suddenly glances away from Xander's now concerned gaze. “Er, that is, Gin said she'd be here. She may just be running late.”  
  
“Any later and she'll be just in time for the baby shower!” Charlie chuckles, but seems relatively unconcerned. He turns back to Kingsley. “Now, about that three days I asked for. . . .”  
  
Xander, meanwhile has gone quite solemn. “Is it because her brother married someone who looks like Tom Riddle?”  
  
Harry shakes his head and smiles ruefully. “Actually, it's less you and more me, that she's bent on avoiding, mate. I wouldn't worry about it, if I were you. It may be awkward, when you two first meet, but once she gets to know you, Ginny will  _love_  you, just like we all do.”  
  
And Harry's gaze is so direct that Xander blushes once more and looks away. But then he frowns. “What do you mean it's  _you_  she's avoiding?” When Harry shakes his head again and turns to move away, Xander puts a hand on his arm and pulls him back. But Harry won't look at him.  
  
“Talk to me, Harry,” Xander says quietly. “What's wrong?”  
  
Harry puts a hand over his mouth for a moment, then laughs that rueful laugh again. He glances at Xander and frees his arm. “Not now, mate. This isn't the time. You're meant to enjoy today and not be bogged down by my problems.”  
  
“But—” Xander leans in, noting the way intensely green Harry's eyes widen and flutter. “I don't want to see you unhappy. If there's any way I can help—even if it's just by listening—“  
  
“I've been unhappy for a very long time, Xander,” Harry says simply, not unkindly, patting Xander's shoulder. “It'll keep. In the meantime, congratulations.” He darts in to kiss Xander's cheek. “Be happy.”  
  
Then he's gone. Striding off toward the house, leaving Xander to gape at an elderly witch—Esmerelda Prewett, he believes, one of Mrs. Weasley's great-aunts—who immediately starts jabbering at him in a thick accent he can barely parse. It's way worse than Spike's cockney accent, yet in the opposite direction.  
  
Soon, Charlie's back by his side, however, and they're greeting and thanking people together, hand in hand. By the time they've greeted and thanked the last people lined up—Victoire and Teddy, also hand in hand—Xander's managed to mostly put Harry Potter out of his mind.  
  
Mostly.  
  


*

  
  
“This's quite a haul for such a last minute wedding,” Ron says after the reception, looking at the piles of presents that cover almost every free surface in the living room. “Hermione and I should've got married so last minute!”  
  
“Honestly, Ron, it's not about the gifts we received. It's about pledging our lives to each other in front of our loved ones!” Hermione says, eyeing one jewelry box-sized present that's been hopping across the room toward the hall, as if making its escape.  
  
“Well, yeah, but still . . . it's a nice haul.” Ron crosses his arms defensively and Hermione rolls her eyes, sitting on the arm of Mum's chair.  
  
“That, it is,” Charlie says, entering the room hand in hand with Xander. They've changed out of their wedding robes and clothes. Charlie's wearing one of his flannel shirts, jeans, and boots. Xander's wearing a brown jumper—knitted by Mum—with an  _X_  stitched across the chest, black jeans, and tennies. “We should get married more often, shouldn't we, love?”  
  
Xander snorts, but smiles as Charlie leans in to kiss his cheek. “Speak for yourself, hus-bear. I'm so tired, I could sleep for a week!”  
  
“Sleep is most definitely  _not_  on the agenda for tonight, Xand,” Charlie promises with such a wicked smile, Xander blushes and Ron rolls his eyes.  
  
“Get a room!” he says, making a face.  
  
“”Excellent idea, Ronald. And on that note, I think Xander and I are off to the Three Broomsticks.” Charlie puts his arm around Xander, who looks at him questioningly. “That's an inn in Hogsmeade Village, a lovely little wizarding town in Scotland . . . I've arranged for us to have three days and four uninterrupted nights there. Happy Honeymoon!” Then he smiles apologetically. “Unfortunately, that's as far and as long as the Ministry's willing to let us go, for now.”  
  
Xander smiles and hugs Charlie. “I'm sure it'll be awesome. Especially since I'll be there with you.”  
  
Gagging noises come from Ron's direction. Then an  _ow, 'Mione!_  when Hermione does something to silence him.  
  
Charlie looks down into Xander's eyes solemnly. “I promise, one day, I'll take somewhere grand. Somewhere you've never been before.”  
  
“Ah, but I've never been to  _Hogsmeade Village_.” Xander's lovely eyes sparkle. “That's near Hogwarts, right?”  
  
Surprised, Charlie nods. “That, it is.”  
  
Laughing, Xander tucks his head under Charlie's chin. “I've been reading  _Hogwarts: A History_ in idle moments. I also read there's good hiking all over the area. Especially the Hogwarts grounds.”  
  
“There is. Plenty of trails to explore.” Charlie's eyebrows furrow. Xander  _hates_  hiking, last he'd heard. . . .  
  
But now, Xander looks up at Charlie, smiling mischievously. “Frankly, I don't care. I don't plan on letting you outta this Three Broomsticks place for the entire three days.”  
  
Charlie grins. “I'm on board with that.”  
  
“Glad to hear it.”  
  
They kiss. And kiss. And kiss some more, till something bumps the back of Xander's foot.  
  
It's the hopping present. Jason approaches it slowly, sniffs it, and looks up at Xander as if to say:  _Will you open it, or shall I?_  
  
Smiling, he kneels to pick up the present. “ **To Uncle Charlee and Uncle Zander** ,” he reads, and Charlie takes the still shaking box. The handwriting is in a barely legible scrawl. In crayon, no less.  
  
“Perhaps  _I_  should open this, just in case,” he says, taking his wand out and a few steps back from Xander. “Some of the younger nieces' and nephews' ideas of gifts are things that can be found in George's shop.”  
  
“And George owns a joke shop, right?” Xander takes a step back, hands covering his abdomen. Charlie nods.  
  
“Most of the things he carries aren't dangerous. Most of them,” Charlie says with a sigh, pointing his wand at the box. “Usually, they're just annoying.  _Aperio_!”  
  
The ribbon on the box undoes itself and the box opens. . . .  
  


*

  
  
“It was really nice of Ron and Hermione to offer clean that up for us,” Xander says as Charlie carries him out of the Floo, into the Three Broomsticks. Then he sneezes. “Ugh, I think there's glitter up my nose!”  
  
“There's glitter  _everywhere_ ,” Charlie says, shaking his head. Glitter flies out of his hair and has seemingly replaced all the freckles on his face. “I know just which nephew's responsible, too. It's Rory, Ron and Hermione's youngest. It's well they  _should_  offer to clean up that mess  _and_  find out a way to stop that glitter bomb from going off every thirty seconds.”  
  
Xander laughs and kisses Charlie's cheek. Then spits a little glitter off his tongue. "My grumpy hubby," he coos and Charlie rolls his eyes and puts him down, leading him through a packed common room, to a crowded bar. He flags down a pretty older witch with a plunging neckline, who's managing several different drinks at once with her wand.  
  
“Charlie!” she calls, grinning. “Long time, no see! Be with ya in a moment, love!”  
  
“Right-o.” Charlie leans against the bar—the patrons to either side of him are polite enough to make room for him . . . or perhaps they just don't want to be covered in glitter—and pulls Xander against him, one arm wrapping around his waist. He starts to say something, then sighs and reaches up to brush glitter off of Xander's nose. “We're bloody  _covered_!”  
  
Laughing again, Xander raises his voice to be heard over the noise of the bar. “It could be worse than glitter. It could be paint, or indelible ink!”  
  
“True, true.” Charlie sighs again, wistfully. “That Rory. He's so like my brother, Fred, it's uncanny.”  
  
Xander lays his head on Charlie's shoulder. “I wish I could have met him.”  
  
“You two would have got on like a house on fire.”  
  
 _Yet another person Tom Riddle is responsible for killing,_  Xander thinks as Charlie kisses his crown and nuzzles his hair.  _There's just no getting away from the horrible things doppelganger dearest has done. It's really amazing I haven't been lynched, instead of just getting a few dirty looks._  
  
“So, how may I help you, Charlie? Fire whisky, straight up? Or shall I just show you to your room? Ooh, and who's this handsome, glitter-covered fellow on your arm?”  
  
The older witch from behind the bar is standing in front of Xander and Charlie, hands on her hips, giving Xander the eye.  
  
“Er, just the room, Rosemerta. And this handsome, glitter-covered fellow is my husband, Xander.” Charlie squeezes Xander close.  
  
Rosemerta's eyes widen and she laughs. “Oh, congratulations! When did the happy nuptials take place?”  
  
“Just this afternoon,” Charlie admits sheepishly, chuckling and kissing Xander's temple. Xander grins, holding out his hand to Rosemerta who takes it and gives it a firm shake.  
  
“Please excuse the glitter,” he asks when she retrieves her hand, only to find it, too, covered in glitter. “It was a Wizarding Wheeze gone horribly wrong. Or horribly right, if you're Rory Weasley.”  
  
Rosemerta tuts. “Well! Glitter, or not, it's nice to meet the man who finally tamed our Charlie. I must say, I didn't think you existed!”  
  
Xander glances up at Charlie, who blushes. “I may have sowed some wild oats in Hogsmeade, once upon a time.”  
  
“Do tell.” Xander's eyebrows shoot up, but his lips are twitching. When Charlie notices this, he stops blushing and stammering and mock-glares.  
  
“That's enough, you. And yes, Rosemerta, just the room, for now.”  
  
Winking, Rosemerta turns and makes her way through the crowd, garnering admiring looks as she goes.”Right this way, boys.”  
  
“Well, you heard the lady,” Xander says, leaning up to kiss Charlie's cheek and taking his hand once more. Charlie turns his face slightly so the kiss lands on his lips, instead, and kisses Xander hard and thoroughly, if briefly, leaving him dazed and grinning.  
  
“Okay.  _Now_  I'm ready,” he says, marching off into the crowd after Rosemerta, hauling an effectively stupefied Xander after him.  
  


*

  
  
“ _Scourgify_ ,” Xander says, swishing and flicking his wand at himself and Charlie. Glitter falls off of them in a shower, to land in twin, sparkling piles at their feet.  
  
Charlie brushes at his de-glittered clothes happily. “That was well done, Xand.”  
  
“Oh, I haven't even begun to show off,” Xander says, stepping out of his pile of glitter and picking up the wastepaper bin near the nightstand. He holds it tilted slightly toward Charlie, and taps the rim with his wand. “ _Accio_  glitter.”  
  
In a swirling, shining trail, glitter flies off the floor, through the air, and into the waiting wastepaper bin. “Ta-da!” Xander holds the bin up triumphantly, then replaces it back near the nightstand. Before he can straighten up, however, Charlie's grabbed his hips and pulled him back against his pelvis.  
  
Against gratifying, tempting hardness.  
  
Xander's wand drops to the floor, momentarily forgotten.  
  
Smiling, he lets Charlie maneuver them about so they're facing the bed, and walk them forward. Xander places his hands on the bed and arches his back like a cat in heat and bunches his hands in the coverlet.  
  
“Is this how you want me?” he breathes, and one of Charlie's hands slips around to Xander's own burgeoning hardness, rubbing and squeezing. A soft kiss is laid tenderly between Xander's shoulder blades.  
  
“I want you any way I can get you, Xand,” Charlie murmur, rocking his body slowly against Xander's. “I want to take my time with you, and  _take_  you in every way possible.”  
  
Shivering, Xander pushes back against Charlie. “Then I guess a better question is, how do you wanna start?”  
  
“Hmm.” Charlie chuckles, suddenly pulling Xander up by the waist and turning him around, just in time for a soft, sweet kiss. “I think I'll start by undressing you the old-fashioned way.”  
  
“Oooh . . .  _kinky_. . . .”  
  
“Lift up your arms, Mr. Weasley,” Charlie says, smiling and tugging on the hem of Xander's sweater.  
  


*

  
  
Somewhere toward dawn, when even the lively Three Broomsticks has calmed down, Charlie lays down between Xander's legs, face pillowed on Xander's abdomen and turned to the side. Xander, a limp, sweaty mess, runs his hand through Charlie's equally damp hair and laughs. The vibrations feel good against Charlie's face, as does the gentle hand carding through his hair.  
  
“What're you listening for, the sea?”  
  
Charlie grins and hushes Xander. “I'm listening to our son. He's got something very important to tell us.”  
  
Xander chuckles again. “Is that so?”  
  
“ _Very much_  so,” Charlie say, turning his head to kiss Xander's abdomen, then adopting that listening pose again. “Jakob says . . . he can't wait to go to Hogwarts when he gets his letter, and that one day . . . he'll be a brilliant Seeker for Gryffindor.”  
  
“Mm. So, our son'll be a Quidditch player, huh?”  
  
“Oh, yes. And he'll have the finest, fastest broom we can get our hands on.”  
  
“You know, the whole flying broom-thing still doesn't sound all that kosher, to me. . . .”  
  
“Jakob says don't worry so much, Da, you'll get used to the idea in time.” Charlie smiles when Xander snorts.  
  
“Maybe for other people's sons, but ours? I dunno, Charlie.”  
  
“He says he promises he'll do good in all his studies—especially runes and potions, since his Dad was rubbish at both. And he'll be cracking at transfigurations and charms, too.”  
  
“He's gonna be one talented, busy boy, is our Jakob.”  
  
“Just like his fathers.”  
  
Charlie can all but hear Xander smiling. And they lay there in a comfortable, sleepy silence, until Xander takes a deeper breath and says Charlie's name softly. Sensing a change in the air, Charlie looks up into his husband's eyes.  
  
Xander tries to smile, but it doesn't really pass muster. “I love you,” he says, and Charlie catches the hand combing through his hair to kiss the palm.  
  
“I love you, too, Xand.”  
  
“And I love our baby more than I ever thought I could love anything.” Xander pauses. “And that's why . . . if, when the time comes for Jakob to be born, it comes down to his life or mine . . . I want you to save his.”  
  
Charlie freezes, gazing into Xander's utterly serious eyes. Then he shakes his head. “But it  _won't_ come to that, Xander. It won't. Obstetric magic has advanced so much in the past thirty-seven years—“  
  
“Charlie . . . we both know how risky this pregnancy is. We were both there when Medi-wizard Braden explained those risks.” Xander's smile widens, but there are tears in his eyes and he looks away. Out the window at the pre-dawn sky. “If something goes wrong and it comes down to Jake's life or my own, I want you to save his. Promise me you will.”  
  
“Xander—“  
  
“ _Promise me_.” Xander look at Charlie again, and this time his eyes are dry. “He comes first, now. He's here, and it's our job, now, to always put him first.” He reaches out and caresses Charlie's face. “Please promise me.”  
  
Charlie searches Xander's eyes, and opens his mouth to say:  _I can't do that, Xand_ , but what comes out is: “Alright. I promise.”  
  
Xander smiles again, satisfied. “Good. That's . . . good.”  
  
“But  _you_  have to promise  _me_  something, too.” Charlie crawls up the bed, till his face is over Xander's. “Promise me that whatever happens, you'll  _fight_. That you won't leave me to raise Jake alone. Promise me . . . that you won't end up like Quentin Oliver.”  
  
Xander sighs and wraps his arms around Charlie's neck, pulling him down, till Charlie's full weight is on top of him. “I can promise that I'll fight, Charlie . . . I just can't promise that I'll win. Dying during childbirth seems to run in the family, you know.”  
  
“Then break with tradition! You were saying earlier how stupid it is—don't let it take you away from me. From  _Jake_.” Charlie kisses Xander's forehead, his cheeks, his lips. “Our son deserves _both_  his fathers in his life. Watching him grow up, guiding him, teaching him how to be a good man. He deserves that, at the very least. He deserves your commitment to fight and to  _win_. Not for me or yourself, but for  _him_.  
  
“So promise me, Xander, that you'll fight, for his sake, and that you'll  _win_.”  
  
This time, Xander searches Charlie's eyes. “I . . . I promise,” he says finally, and kisses Charlie fiercely. “I promise. I promise. I  _promise_.”  
  
“Don't make me have to choose between you or Jake,” Charlie pleads between kisses. “I don't know that I could make a decision either of us could live with.”  
  
“I promise,” Xander says again, hugging Charlie tight. “For  _all_  of our sakes, I promise to fight and win. I won't make you have to choose.”  
  
Charlie nods, relieved—more so than he's ever been in his life, and he kisses Xander once more. Kisses his way down Xander's throat, his chest, his stomach and abdomen—where he lays the most tender kisses of all—then down to Xander's very interested prick. He kisses and licks his way down to the tip and, with Xander gazing intensely, intently at him, does his best to swallow Xander whole. Charlie takes him in until his eyes begin to water and breathing has become something of a problem.  
  
But not enough of a problem to stop. Not enough, when Charlie knows, quite suddenly what he wants—has  _been wanting_  for some time, now, and finally has the stones to ask for. And to get what he wants, he needs Xander to be as hard as he can get him.  
  
And nothing makes Xander harder faster than Charlie's mouth.  
  
“ _Charlie,_ ” Xander chokes out, his head thrown back, his lower lip held hostage between his teeth. His hand comes up to run through Charlie's hair again. “Oh, Charlie, I love you. . . .”  
  
Charlie swallows around Xander several times, till Xander's making breathless, high-pitched noises in the back of his throat. Then he carefully pulls off, kissing the tip again and running his tongue across the slit because it makes Xander shiver, every time. “I love you, too . . . hey, I was thinking . . . would you maybe like to . . . switch it up?”  
  
Still shivering, Xander looks down at Charlie, his gaze both heated and puzzled. “Switch what up?”  
  
Charlie blushes, and looks down at Xander's prick, bobbing in the air. “I mean you . . . inside _me_.”  
  
Eyes saucer-wide, Xander sits up on his elbows. “I thought you only topped?” he says, and Charlie laughs a little, still blushing.  
  
“So did I.” He wraps his hand around Xander's prick and strokes it till Xander's quick breathing has become erratic panting. “I've never bottomed for anyone. Never really felt comfortable with even the idea of doing so, no matter how curious I was. Never thought I could . . . be with someone that way. Until now.” Meeting Xander's eyes again, he smiles almost shyly. “Until  _you_.”  
  
Xander sits up all the way and cups Charlie's face in his hands. “I've never topped before. Not with a man, anyway.” He bites his lip again, then laughs nervously. “God, talk about something you didn't know you wanted until you got it.”  
  
He brushes his thumb across Charlie's lips then kisses them. “We'll take it slow, and I'll make it good for you,” he promises, and Charlie nods, swallowing.  
  
“How, er . . . how do you want me?” he asks, rather nervous, himself. Xander's smile is simultaneously gentle and ravenous as he studies Charlie.  
  
“Any way I can have you, Charlie Weasley,” he replies, then kisses Charlie again: a quick teasing kiss that promises many things, all of them wicked. “But I think for now, I want you on your stomach.”  
  
Charlie nods again, still anxious, but  _hard_  also. He crawls up the bed and lays down, arms pillowing his face and spread his legs wide. He feels exposed, even under Xander's loving gaze, but manages to lay still.  
  
Then Xander kneels between his thighs and kisses the center of Charlie's back, down to the small. His hands push Charlie's legs wider, then spread his cheeks apart. After nearly an eternity of gazing, his breath warm and moist, ghosts across Charlie's entrance. Charlie gasps and shivers, himself.  
  
“I'm gonna make this  _so_  good for you,” Xander whispers, kissing the tight, twitching opening, flicking his tongue across it repeatedly before darting it in.  
  
Charlie makes a sound that he's  _never_  made before, high and stuttered, and his eyes flutter shut. His hands clench in the pillow and his body slowly begins to relax. Before long, he's humping the bed, sighing  _yes_ , and pleading for  _more_. He's not quite cogent enough anymore to know what that  _more_  would be, just that he  _needs_  it.  
  
Xander kisses his right cheek, then his left. Then he sits up, one hand on Charlie's arse, only to lean back down a second later. He runs something slim, cool, and hard down Charlie's back, to his arse, to gently brush Charlie's opening.  
  
“Xand—” Charlie chokes out, and Xander chuckles.  
  
“ _Lubrico_ ,” he says, and there's a warm, oily sort of tingle inside Charlie that only makes him harder and more desperate. Xander's wand traces a path from Charlie's entrance, down to his perineum, to his balls, before disappearing entirely.  
  
Then Xander's finger is backtracking the wand's path, till it's circling Charlie's hole, feinting in, but never quite breaching the first muscle.  
  
“Please,” Charlie breathes shakily, dying from anticipation. “Merlin, Xand . . .  _please_. . . .”  
  
Xander leans down and kisses Charlie's shoulder and neck, then slowly, s l o w l y pushes his finger in. Charlie cries out, unused to the stretch and burn of it, but clenching down on Xander's finger anyway, wanting more of the unique and unfamiliar sensation of being filled.  
  
“God, Charlie, you're so  _tight_ ,” Xander's murmuring against Charlie's neck, twisting his finger and searching, searching. When he finds what he's looking for, Charlie cries out again in a raw, hoarse voice. “So tight and so  _hot_.”  
  
Writhing on the bed, now, Charlie sees fireworks and explosions on the backs of his eyes that make the glitter-bomb of last night seem like the puny prank that it was. Xander's finger withdraws and thrusts back in, unerringly going to Charlie's prostate again, and he  _wails_.  
  
This goes on for another few minutes, till Charlie's begging Xander to  _please, please_. And Xander, swearing and dragging his own turgid cock up Charlie's thigh, adds a second finger. The burn is even more intense, the stretch more pronounced, the filled-sensation increased by a thousand percent. Tears are leaking out of Charlie's eyes, and he pushes back onto Xander's fingers  _hard_ , grunting when they're as deep as he can get them.  
  
“Greedy,” Xander tsks playfully, scissoring his fingers gently, brushing Charlie's prostate in a way that sends echoes of pleasure rippling all throughout his body. Charlie sighs, bearing down again on Xander's fingers.  
  
“Fuck me,” he says, his voice cracking with frustration and desperation.  
  
“You're not ready, babe. I don't think I could, just yet, without hurting you. Maybe in a few minutes. . . .”  
  
But Charlie's scrambling up onto his hands and knees. Carefully, so as not to dislodge Xander's working fingers. He hangs his head and opens his eyes to see the blurry white of pillow and sheet. “I'm ready, Xand. Promise. I  _need_  you.”  
  
“ _Fuck_ ,” Xander exhales when Charlie pushes back against his hand once more and clenches as tight as possibly can. “Okay. Okay. But you've gotta let me go slow. So I don't hurt you and so I don't come when I'm half-way in you. Deal?”  
  
“Deal,” Charlie's quick to say, glancing over his shoulder as sweat drips in his eyes. Behind him, Xander's got his wand again and is pointing it at his prick, muttering the lube spell. Then he looks at Charlie and smiles. He gets to his knees, putting one hand on Charlie's hip, the other spreading the lube over his cock. From this angle, to Charlie, it looks  _massive_.  
  
Xander kisses Charlie's back once more, lingering and reassuring. “I love you.”  
  
Charlie turns his head back toward the headboard, taking deep breaths and trying to make his body as loose as he can. “Love you, too.”  
  
Xander lines himself up with care, the tip of his cock resting against Charlie's opening. “Here goes.” He slowly, v e r y slowly, pushes forward. . . .  
  
The pain is, for that first few moments, incredible. It literally forces all the breath out of Charlie's body. Then Xander's hands are smoothing up and down his back, and Xander's begging him to _relax, baby, please, relax . . . let me in_.  
  
So Charlie tries to relax into the burn and stretch of it. To that sensation of being  _filled_  that he'd enjoyed so much before, when it was Xander's fingers.  
  
After all, those fingers had been preparing him for exactly  _this_.  
  
And Xander, true to his word, moves as slowly and carefully as possible, murmuring his love and complimenting Charlie till, at long last, he's fully sheathed in Charlie's shaking body. Charlie's panting and moaning, trying and failing to draw deep enough breaths, and Xander's hands leave his hips to rub his back again.  
  
“You're doing great, Charlie . . . so good. . . .” one hand slips from Charlie's back to reach around for his wilted prick. Xander takes it in hand and strokes it slow and sweet, his thumb alternately swiping the wet tip. He swivels his hips carefully, pulling out slightly to ease back in, obviously searching for Charlie's prostate again.  
  
Charlie's covered in sweat, now, and can barely see for it dripping in his eyes. But he doesn't need to see to know he's starting to get hard again. Or to know when the head of Xander's prick finds his prostate. Every muscle in his body bears down on Xander's prick and his own suddenly perks up rather dramatically. Xander goes still.  
  
“Fuck—Charlie, are you okay? Did I . . . did I hurt you?”  
  
“Do that again?” Charlie begs. “For Merlin's sake, do that again, Xander!”  
  
This time, Xander pulls out almost all the way then thrusts back in, not so slowly. He nails Charlie's prostate hard, and Charlie wails again, this mixture of pain and pleasure nearly unbearable. And Xander's hand keeps up that perfect stroke-swipe combination.  
  
“ _More_ ,” Charlie demands, understanding, finally, what that  _more_  is. What it's  _always_  been. He pushes back against Xander, one hand leaving the bed to reach back for Xander's. A moment later, their fingers link together, and Xander pulls out.  
  
And then he gives Charlie  _more_.


	23. The Post-Honeymooners

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Xander and Charlie have sex. Xander and Ginny finally meet. Harry and Ginny have problems. Xander and Charlie have sex.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: Who owns nothing? I own nothing!

Xander awakens on the final day of their honeymoon much the same way he's awakened on the other days: On his stomach, Charlie kissing his way down Xander's back, then holding his cheeks apart to run his tongue down to Xander's sore, sensitized hole.  
  
He laves it with his tongue, flicking it teasingly in, but not quite penetrating Xander. At least not until Xander's moaning and squirming on the bed, swearing and panting, beging for more, _please, Charlie, more_. . . .  
  
And, as always, Charlie gives him more—or is about to, when there's a knock at the door.  
  
“GO. AWAY!” Xander calls hoarsely as Charlie's agile, oh, so,  _naughty_  tongue wiggles its way inside him. “OH, GOD, GO  _AWAY_!”  
  
“Em . . . sorry. But it's check-out time, and I need to get in to clean the room for the next guests,” a muffled, slightly hesitant voice says.  
  
This time, Charlie's the one to moan, and he withdraws his tongue with a final lascivious slurp then crawls up Xander's body and the bed to whisper in his ear:  
  
“We'll pick up where we left off later, alright?”  
  
“ _So_  not alright . . . but I guess we don't have a choice,” Xander grouses, and Charlie nuzzles his ear.  
  
“Not unless we want Rosemerta up here. She has a key to all the rooms and she's not shy about using it.”  
  
Xander shudders. “Alright, alright, I get the point. Well, I was  _going_  to get the point, until we were so rudely interrupted.” He snorts, reaching behind him and between them for Charlie's cock. It's gratifyingly hard, and Xander sighs.  
  
“Don't worry, Xand, I promise you, it'll keep,” Charlie says, laughing and groaning as Xander strokes him off. “Or maybe it won't— _fuck_ , if you don't stop, I'm gonna come just from this.”  
  
“Kinda the idea, hon. Uh, give us five minutes, please! We need to, uh, get dressed!” Xander calls to the waiting maid at the door, still running his thumb across the glans of Charlie's cock and hissing when Charlie insinuates his hands between him and the bed, and pulls Xander up to his knees.  
  
Then  _his hand_  is on Xander's cock, rough and tight and  _fast_. . . .  
  
Five minutes and thirty-seven breathless seconds later, they open the door to the room—scourgified, clothes on mostly straight, faces flushed—and apologize to the maid, who looks both harried and horrified.  
  
Then they're making their way down to the common room and the floo.  
  
 _At least_ , Xander thinks guiltily as Charlie kisses Rosemerta on the cheek, then scoops Xander up in his arms.  _We left a really good tip._  
  
Then they're in the floo, and on their way to the Burrow.  
  


*

  
  
Charlie and Xander step out of the floo—Xander carried safely in Charlie's arms—and into a small-scale war-zone.  
  
“—she's been at loose ends since graduating from Hogwarts, Gin. I think this'll be good for her,” Harry's saying to Charlie's sister, who's got that angry,  _mum_ -look on her face and her hands on her narrow hips.  
  
“And  _I'm_  telling you, no daughter of mine is going to be a dragon-keeper!” She proclaims, her voice rising as Harry sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose.  
  
“You can't exactly stop her from doing this, if it's what she wants, Gin. She's reached the age of majority.”  
  
“Then  _you_  stop her Harry! Or don't you even care, anymore?”  
  
Now, Harry's glaring. “How can you say I don't care? Just because I'm not behaving like some autocratic despot—“  
  
“It's autocratic, now, to love and worry about our children?”  
  
“When it gets in the way of their dreams, I believe it is.”  
  
“Oh, yes, the dream she's had for about two weeks!” Ginny rolls her eyes. “Wouldn't want to stand in the way of  _that_!”  
  
Harry sighs again. “Look, there's every chance that once she sees the nuts and bolts of how dragon-keeping works, she'll lose interest in it, just as she has with everything else.”  
  
“Except that she thinks she's uniquely qualified for the job because she speaks bloody Parseltongue.” Ginny crosses her arms and turns away from Harry, only to start when she notices Charlie and Xander standing at the fireplace. Then she starts again when she gets a good looks at Xander.  
  
Harry follows her gaze and covers his eyes for a moment, muttering something about timing.  
  
“You're home,” he says, trying to smile. It doesn't quite work. “How was the honeymoon?  
  


*

  
  
Lunch is an awkward affair, with the four of them sitting around Molly's kitchen table, eating sandwiches Xander and Harry hastily put together while the siblings get caught up.  
  
And Xander can't, of course, help but notice the way Ginny Potter's eyes keep sliding over to him. He can feel her intent gaze even when his back is turned, which is most of the time, while he and Harry are sandwich-crafting.  
  
Then, when he and Harry bring the sandwiches over to the table—Charlie looks up at Xander with a soft: “Thank you love,” and a kiss when Xander sits down—a silence falls over the two couples. Everyone takes a sandwich and busies themselves with eating it.  
  
Ginny keeps sneaking peeks at Xander, her face growing more and more confused, and Xander, for his part, doesn't know  _where_  to look. Harry's avoiding everyone's eyes and Charlie's trying so hard to pretend everything is alright.  
  
Finally, Xander—having barely tasted any of his sandwich, even though two-thirds of it is gone—sighs and looks at Ginny straight on, smiling lamely, daring to approach the white elephant in the room. “So . . . I look like Tom Riddle and most of the witches and wizards who've met me find that . . . disconcerting.”  
  
“Yes. Quite,” Ginny breathes—it's a small sigh of relief—and almost smiles, herself. “The resemblance  _is_  uncanny. I can't imagine that's been . . . easy for you. I've been seeing the photos and articles in the  _Prophet_ , and well, the photos at least don't do the resemblance justice.”  
  
Xander blushes. “Yeah, well, they're close enough to freak  _me_  out,” he mutters, and Charlie takes his hand, pulling it to his mouth for a kiss. Ginny's eyes tick between them, and she sighs once more, shaking her head.  
  
“How did you two meet, if you don't mind me asking?”  
  
Xander and Charlie share a glance. Then Xander shrugs and Charlie answers. “We met in a cafe in Romania five months ago. Xander had made a . . . social gaffe of sorts, and we stared talking and . . . things just went from there.”  
  
Ginny's brow furrows. “Five months? Isn't that a little . . . soon to be getting married and having a child?”  
  
“In most cases, I'm sure it might be. In some cases, knowing each other for a lifetime isn't long enough.” Charlie agrees, and for some reason, both Ginny and Harry blush. But Charlie squeezes Xander's hand and doesn't seem to notice. “Trust me on this, Gin: we know what we're doing. I've never met anyone like Xander in my entire life, and never will again. He's the love of my life. Of  _all_  my lives.”  
  
“Oh,  _Charlie_ ,” Xander murmurs, leaning in to kiss Charlie. Charlie, of course, happily kisses him back, tugging Xander up and over, till Xander's sitting in his lap. They laugh and kiss and hug till Harry clears his throat.  
  
“Oh, sorry.” Xander blushes, but plants a final quick, small kiss on Charlie's lips, but not moving from Charlie's lap. “Leftover honeymoon horniness. You know how it is.”  
  
Ginny and Harry blush again, carefully not looking at each other or at Xander and Charlie.  
  
“Hey, speaking of the  _Daily Prophet_ ,” Xander begins with a sigh of his own, “we've managed to avoid it for four blissful days and nights. Have we been featured in it at all?”  
  
Now, at last, Harry and Ginny exchange a glance. Ginny shrugs and Harry sighs. “ _Accio_   _Daily Prophet_ ,” he says. And several issues of the newspaper come flying into the room, to land on the table in front of Harry, who sorts through them, muttering to himself. “Aha!”  
  
He hands one of the evening editions to Xander, who takes it and unfolds it. “I see Charlie and I have made the first page, once more. Or at least our hands have,” he says wryly, tilting the paper so Charlie can see the front page photo.  
  
Technically, there are two shots: one of Charlie's hand and one of Xander's, side by side. Both still-shots, for once, but only so, it would appear, the photo editor could highlight the rings on their fingers.  
  
The headline is, predictably:  **SECRET NUPTIALS!**  
  
Charlie opens the paper to page three, where the story is continued. “'. . . seen about Hogsmeade and environs, walking hand in hand, and wearing matching wedding rings, Mr. Charles Weasley and the Tom Riddle look-a-like—whom, the  _Prophet_  can now confirm is named and has been introduced to several people this reporter has spoken to as  _Xander Weasley_ —were confirmed by many to be on their honeymoon.  
  
“'The pair were not shy about announcing their recent nuptials to all and sundry, though one wonders why the wedding announcement wasn't simply posted in the  _Prophet_ '—she wonders why?” Charlie snorts, handing the paper back to Xander, who skims the article, which has little substance, and scans the photos of them at the few places they'd left their room to go visit: _Puddifoot's, Gladrags, Dervish and Banges,_  and, several times,  _Honeyduke's_.  
  
In fact, he and Charlie have packages coming to the Burrow from the latter three, though mostly from  _Dervish and Banges_ , where they'd picked up some basic wizarding supplies for relatively cheap, for Xander's future studies. A standard, size two, pewter cauldron, some scales, a mortar and pestle, and things of that nature.  
  
“If I were a spiteful man, I'd give an interview to the  _Quibbler_  just for her cheek!” Charlie snorts again, leaning his chin on Xander's shoulder.  
  
“What's the  _Quibbler_? Is that another newspaper?”  
  
“Yeah, the only direct rival of the  _Prophet_ , actually. And you know, Charlie, that's not a bad idea,” Harry says thoughtfully. “This wouldn't be the first time the newspapers were used to control the flow of information. Perhaps you two giving a  _candid_  interview with the  _Quibbler_ might puncture this balloon of Ministry secrecy Skeeter's blown up. . . .”  
  
Charlie and Xander look at each other. “Listen, Harry, mate, I was just kidding about giving an interview with the  _Quibbler_  . . . I think the best thing is to let this whole interest in us run its course and fizzle out.” Charlie looks at Xander again for agreement, but Xander's frowning in thought, too.  
  
“This . . .  _Quibbler_  . . . is it on the level? Fair and accurate, and all that jazz?” he asks, and Harry nods.  
  
“Occasionally their stories are a bit . . . on the weird side, but they're honest, and Xenophilius and Luna Lovegood have more integrity in their little fingers than Rita Skeeter has ever had in her whole life. Which isn't saying much, but . . . I trust them to do fair and accurate reporting, and not play hobble-de-hoy with the facts or draw erroneous conclusions based on next to nothing.” Harry waves at the piles of the  _Prophet_  on the table.  
  
“Huh.” Xander breathes, and Charlie's eyes widen. “That's not a bad idea, there, Mr. Weasley and Mr. Potter.”  
  
“You're not  _serious_ , love?!”  
  
“Well, I think Harry has a point about getting our own version of things out there before people like that Skeeter-person can poison the water. It's a classic end-run celebrities use to do damage control. And with  _this_  mug? I need all the damage control I can get.” Xander laughs ruefully, and Charlie reaches up to caress his cheek.  
  
“I  _love_  this mug,” he says solemnly. “I can't imagine waking up every morning to a lovelier sight.”  
  
Xander leans closer till his forehead is touching Charlie's. “Thank you,” he says. “But sadly, most of the wizarding world won't feel that way. And that's why I think we ought to at least consider Harry's idea. Especially if we have the Ministry's help in answering some of the more . . . thorny, classified questions, such as why, exactly, I look like Tom Riddle.”  
  
Harry nods again, looking grim. “You leave the, er, thorny questions to us, and we'll come up with something that'll satisfy the public without . . . outting you, as it were.”  
  
“Why  _do_  you look like Tom Riddle, by the way?” Ginny asks, eyes narrowing in curiosity and, yes, suspicion. “Not just a little, but  _exactly_  like him.”  
  
“That's a good question . . . Harry?” Charlie turns to his brother-in-law and, following his gaze, so does Xander. Even Ginny turns to him. Harry clears his throat and says in his blandest tones.  
  
“The Ministry is, of course, looking into this matter as time and circumstances allow. We don't, as yet, have any definite answers, but until we've completed our investigation into this matter, we'll do our best to reassure the wizarding public and keep them apprised of the situation.”  
  
Xander blinks, as do Charlie and Ginny.  
  
“Was any of that in English?” Charlie asks. Ginny shakes her head. “I'm not sure that it was.”  
  
“That, my fine witch and wizard, was government non-speak. And it was  _perfect_!” Xander says, leaning across the table to shake Harry's hand. Harry looks bemused, but takes Xander's hand. “If you decide being a wizard-cop isn't for you, you should come be our PR guy.”  
  
Ginny laughs and responds before Harry can. “Harry's been an auror since he was eleven years old. I don't expect he'll be changing that any time soon.”  
  
At this, Harry's smile turns rather bitter, and he stands up. “Well, some of us have to be heading back to that job we've been doing since we were eleven. My lunch hour ended at leat half an hour ago, sorry,” he adds when Xander pouts. That bitter smile becomes less so. “The Ministry is willing to let you stay at the Burrow, if you wish, though if you prefer, I can pop over later to take you back to Grimmauld Place—“ Harry's tone says what he thinks of the likelihood of that happening.  
  
“Why  _do_  you stay there, Harry, where you have a perfectly good home that  _doesn't_  include screaming, racist paintings and ghouls in the loo?” Ginny asks, and Harry rolls his eyes.  
  
“Well, with the kids moved out and you gone most of the time, it's just easier for me to stay at Grimmauld Place.”  
  
“How? How is it easier?” Ginny demands, trying to put a smile on the face of it, but that smile merely looks like a dyspeptic grimace. Harry pushes his chair in and looks at her.  
  
“It just is,” he says quietly, and finally. And Ginny subsides, but with a cold, unhappy silence.  
  
“We still need to talk about Lily and this . . . dragon-keeping thing,” she says, glancing at Charlie. “And I want Charlie, as the only dragon-keeper we know, there, as well.”  
  
Harry rolls his eyes, but nods his assent. “If that's okay with Charlie? This evening, around eight?”  
  
Charlie sighs, but nods. “I can answer any questions you have about dragon-keeping . . . they may not be the answers you want or expect, though, Gin,” he says gently. And Ginny's lips purse.  
  
“How would you feel if it was  _your_  child?” She points at Xander's midsection. “The child he's carrying right now. Imagine in nineteen years, that child wanted to be a dragon-keeper. How would you feel?”  
  
Xander and Charlie look at each other, and Charlie places his hand over Xander's abdomen.  
  
“Worried,” he decides, but smiles. “But proud. And let me say . . . very recently, both Xander and a mate of mine, Gavin, were very badly injured when we brought in an Ironbelly dragon. Last I heard, Gavin was still being kept in a healing coma at St. Mungo's due to the extent of his injuries. But—“ he adds, before Ginny can say anything. “If—no,  _when_  he's better, he'll be right back out there with the rest of us, taking care of our dragons. It's a labor of love, not of foolhardiness, despite what you may think, Gin. And anyway, most of the time isn't spent bringing in new and wild dragons, but taking care of the ones we already have. We actually only average one dragon per year. If that.”  
  
Ginny shakes her head. “I still think it's a horrible idea for Lily. She's so . . . flighty. Smart. Brave. But flighty. If that flightiness exerted itself at the wrong moment, she could wind up like your friend Gavin.”  
  
“Honestly, if she displays that much flightiness during her internship—which is where she'd start, for the first year—she'd wash right out of the program. The keeper who's temporarily holding my position, Charlene, wouldn't let her past the interview stage if she seemed unsuited to the work in any way, no matter who she was related to.”  
  
“See? All on the up and up. And we can discuss it in more detail later because I have a meeting. . . .” Harry says regretfully, glancing at his Muggle-style watch. Ginny snorts.  
  
“Don't you always?”  
  
There's another awkward silence, during which Harry takes out his wand and clearly fights the urge to respond to what Ginny—who's already looking as if she regrets saying it—said. It's a fight that Harry loses.  
  
“And you wonder why I stay at Grimmauld Place?” he asks stiffly. “ _Apparate_!”  
  
And in the wake of Harry's apparation, Ginny looks both guilty and hurt—as if she's lost the plot of her entire life and is just now realizing it.  
  
Neither Xander nor Charlie know what to say to her—but that turns out to not be a problem, as Ginny stands up suddenly, a bright, but fake smile on her pretty face. “Well!” she says, clapping her hands together. “Now that I've managed to bollocks up my homecoming to the hilt—I'm going home to take a bath and a nap. I'll see you both this evening. Excuse me.”  
  
And with that, she's striding out of the kitchen, shoulders back and head held high.  
  
“Yikes. How long's  _this_  been going on?” Xander asks Charlie, who shrugs helplessly.  
  
“I don't know. Last I knew, things were—well, maybe not  _wonderful_  between them, but they were better than  _this_.”  
  
Xander shudders, remembering what Harry had told him at the wedding reception.  
  
 _I've been unhappy for a long time,_  he'd said. Then he'd told Xander to not worry about it . . . as if, once told something like that, anyone would be liable to just  _forget_  it.  
  
Sighing again, Xander lays his head on Charlie's shoulder. “Promise me we'll never end up like that—just passively aggressively hurting each other, then running away before we at least  _try_  to solve our problems.”  
  
Charlie kisses Xander's forehead and gathers him into his arms, standing up. Xander wraps his arms around Charlie's neck. “I promise,” Charlie says, gazing seriously into Xander's eyes as he carries him into the hallway and up the stairs.  
  
“And promise me we'll find a way to help Harry and Ginny,” Xander adds, and Charlie makes a face.  
  
“Love, it's not our marriage. We shouldn't get involved.”  
  
“But look at how unhappy they are? Promise me that if there's any way we can help them be happier, we'll do our best. Nothing interfere-y, just . . . a little nudge, here and there, as needed.”  
  
“Xand. . . .” Charlie groans, lightly kicking open the door to his and Bill's old room. Once inside, he kicks the door shut, placing Xander on his old bed and sitting next to him. Xander does not let go of Charlie, but instead holds him closer.  
  
“Just offering a listening ear and advice?”  
  
“They've been married for almost thirty years. We haven't even been married thirty  _days_. What kind of advice could we offer?”  
  
“Better advice than the none they're getting, right now,” Xander says, kissing Charlie teasingly. “They're floundering, and they're making each other miserable. I've seen this before—I grew up with it. If they don't get some sort of help, either from family or from a professional counselor, they're going to end up like  _my_  parents. Or, since they're probably smarter than my parents were, they'll end up divorced.”  
  
Charlie frowns even as Xander kisses that frown away.  
  
“Alright,” he says finally, letting Xander pull him down to the bed. “I'll take Gin if you take Harry. And  _only_  if they come to us, first. We're not going to get into their business and forcing unsolicited advice on them. Deal?”  
  
Xander pouts, but Charlie's facial expression doesn't change one iota. “Deal?” he says again, and Xander huffs. “Fine, deal. No unsolicited advice.”  
  
“Good.” Charlie maneuvers his body so that he's laying between Xander's legs and looking down into his eyes. “I do, however, love that you have such a big and caring heart.”  
  
“Well, he's our friend. And she's your sister. They're  _family,_  and if we can't help family. . . .” Xander shrugs. Then moans softly as Charlie kisses him. And kisses him. And kisses him some more.  
  
“So, how long do you think we have till someone comes home?” Xander eventually pants on Charlie's lips, and Charlie grins.  
  
“A few hours, maybe.”  
  
“In that case, I declare our honeymoon to be not over for at least the next few hours!” Xander exclaims, fumbling about in his robe for his wand. Charlie, who, as always, is robeless, beats him to the punch by simply touching the wand in its holster.  
  
“ _Divestio_!” he murmurs, and just like magic, they're naked. Xander chuckles as Charlie starts grinding against him. He's more than half hard, and in less than a minute, so is Xander, who wraps his legs around Charlie's waist. They're still gazing into each other's eyes and grinning.  
  
“Are we really gonna have sex in your  _old room_?” Xander finally asks, laughing. Charlie's eyebrows shoot up.  
  
“If I could even venture as guess as to how many times I've wanked in here—“  
  
“That's different, you know.” Xander hisses as Charlie's cock slides past his balls, dragging lightly over his perineum. “ _Totally_  different.”  
  
“Mm . . . how so?” Charlie kisses Xander again, before he can answer. And it's just as well, because Xander has no real explanation for why it  _is_  different, just that it is.  
  
And different doesn't necessarily mean  _bad_.  
  
No, it definitely doesn't mean bad, when Charlie's body feels, as always, so  _good_  against his own.  
  
 _I wish Harry had this with—well, if not with Ginny, then at least with_ someone, is Xander's last thought before Charlie gently urges him onto his stomach, then slides a pillow beneath his hips. Xander spreads his legs without having to be told, and draws in a stuttered breath as Charlie kisses the small of his back.  _I wish Harry had someone he could feel this safe with._  
  
Then all thought is eradicated as Xander moans, and squirms around Charlie's tongue, and their honeymoon—which had ended so abruptly when a maid had knocked on their door to remind them it was check-out time—picks up right from where it left off.

 

TBC


	24. Xander Weasley: Dragon-Charmer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After more than three months spent in London, under the watchful eye of the Ministry of Magic, Charlie—and Xander with him—are allowed to partially resume their lives in Romania . . . well, their work-lives, anyway. At the end of the day, they still hang their figurative hats at the Burrow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes/Spoilers/Warnings: Canon compliant for both ‘verses. M-Preg. Set post-Chosen by ten years, and post DH/e by ten years. Spoilers for BtVS “Chosen” and DH/e. Enjoy!

**The Best Part of Waking Up**

  
  
Charlie Weasley blinks in the morning light and rolls over to bury his face in his husband’s hair.  
  
Nevertheless the alarm clock continues to go off with its tinny, annoying version of Celestina Warbeck's “Sunshine All Over My Day.”  
  
Eventually, even Xander starts to take the hint and begins waking up. He moans and whines and feels for his night table. Unfortunately for him, the alarm clock is on Charlie's, not his own.  
  
“Baby. . . .” Xander sighs, only half awake. Charlie kisses the back of his head and slides a proud, possessive hand across Xander’s abdomen. “Make it stop?”  
  
“Okay, love. Go back to sleep and I'll come back to wake you up in ten minutes.”  
  
“Fifteen?”  
  
“Ten. You can't be late. Not on your first day.”  
  
Xander whines again and rolls over till he's facing Charlie. His eyes are squinty and tired. “But . . . you're the  _boss_.”  
  
“Exactly. I have an example to set. So do you, now that you're our newly-minted Dragon Liaison and Consultant.” Charlie stretches and sits up, rubbing Xander's arm. “We've got to be on time, love.”  
  
He's half way out of bed when Xander pulls him back and pushes him down to the pillow, suddenly not seeming so sleepy anymore. Charlie grins lazily up at him and lets his wrists be pinned to either side of his pillow.  
  
“Is this your wand poking holes in the sheet, or are you just glad to see me?” Xander asks, glancing down at the morning wood Charlie's sporting. Charlie's lazy grin widens.  
  
“Not m'wand, but I can perform magic with it, just the same,” he says, freeing one hand to push the sheets off himself. When he's uncovered, bared proudly to the early morning light, Xander licks his lips and scoots down Charlie's body.  
  
“Sunshine All Over My Day,” continues to issue from the alarm clock—which has begun to sound just a wee bit exasperated—and the sun begins its unhurried ascent up the vault of Heaven.  
  
Charlie moans softly, his hand clenching gently in Xander's hair as he arches up off the bed, pushing himself down Xander's willing throat. Xander's hands slide up and down his calves as he hums and swallows happily.  
  
So the day begins.  
  


**Mirror, Mirror. . . .**

  
  
Charlie steps into their bedroom, whistling, sipping a cup of coffee, to find Xander standing in front of the full-sized mirror, in nothing but his jeans, hands sliding over the just-beginning-to-swell, slight curve of his abdomen.  
  
“I can't believe I'm already beginning to show,” he mutters without even glancing at Charlie, who places his coffee on their dresser and comes over to Xander. He slides his arms around his frowning, pouting husband, his own hands coming up to cover what Xander calls the  _baby-bump_. “Charlie, how can I be showing at only three months?”  
  
Charlie kisses Xander's neck and sways him gently. “Medi-wizard Braden said showing a little early was usual for male pregnancies. And that  _Jake_  is showing every sign of being a healthy-sized baby. Add those two things together and you’re going to show a little sooner than usual.”  
  
“Yeah, I remember, it's just. . . .” Xander sighs. “I was counting on at least another month before I started looking like a . . . freakshow.”  
  
Charlie meets Xander's vulnerable, uncertain gaze in the mirror. “You do  _not_  look like a freakshow, love. You look . . . beautiful.”  
  
Xander snorts. “Uh-huh. Am I glowing, yet?”  
  
“Bright enough to read by on a dark night,” Charlie promises, combing Xander's hair back off his face. It’s grown long enough to pull back into a ponytail, which Charlie usually does for Xander, of a morning. In fact, he does it now, once more finger-combing Xander’s sable hair and tying it back with a length of ribbon. “So lovely.  _Radiant_.”  
  
Xander smiles, small and diffident, at their reflections. “You . . . really think so?”  
  
“I  _know_  so. You're  _gorgeous_.” Charlie turns Xander around so they're facing each other. Xander wraps his arms around Charlie's neck and leans in for a kiss that Charlie is more than happy to provide.  
  
“Mm, you taste like coffee,” Xander murmurs wistfully into the kiss. “I miss coffee so much.”  
  
“Poor love . . . but it’s just a few more months before you’re back to feeding your caffeine habit,” Charlie murmurs consolingly. Xander’s eyebrows shoot up.  
  
“A few more months? Try  _six_. Or rather, five, since they say Jake’s gonna be an early show-er.” Xander snorts. “I’ll have slipped into a coma from lack of energy, by then!”  
  
“Well, there’s always a good cuppa. . . .” Charlie smiles encouragingly. Xander makes a face.  
  
“I may be English now, by make and by marriage, but I’m not  _that_  English. Unless it’s iced green tea with honey as a sweetener.”  
  
Now Charlie makes a face. “Eurgh! There’s absolutely nothing English about  _iced_  tea. Buh-loody revolting!”  
  
Xander chuckles. “Snob.”  
  
“And bloody-well proud of it. Now,” Charlie says sternly, leaning down till his forehead touches Xander’s. “Enough stalling, Mr. Weasley. It’s time to head to the Ministry, our Floo-point, and thence, our dragons.”  
  
Groaning, Xander cups Charlie’s face in his hands. “What if I’ve forgotten how to speak Parcels-Tongue?”  
  
Charlie’s eyebrows shoot up and he leans down further to kiss Xander’s neck, his warm, rough, large hand cupping Xander through his jeans. In mere minutes he has Xander hard, and squirming and hissing.  
  
“Merlin on a go-kart . . . forget work, and let’s stay here and fuck. . . .”  
  
Charlie grins on Xander’s throat. “Doesn’t sound like you’ve forgot Parseltongue at all, to me.”  
  
Xander blushes and starts to reply. It comes out in Parcels-Tongue for the first few words, the favored language of a turned-on Xander then he reminds himself to speak in English . . . if only so Charlie knows to not stop. “Don’t stop. . . .”  
  
“Oh, I won’t. If only to help calm those nerves,” Charlie promises, his hand snaking into Xander’s quickly unzipped jeans. Then he sighs melodramatically, maneuvering Xander toward their bed, a transfigured version of Charlie’s and Bill’s old beds. (Indeed, Charlie and Xander’s bedroom in the Burrow used to be Charlie and Bill’s.) “Of course this means we’ll have to save breakfast for Romania.”  
  
Wrapping his arms around Charlie’s neck, Xander grins when Charlie scoops him up in his arms. “I’m—oh, Charlie—surprisingly on-board with that.”  
  
“But you  _will_  be eating breakfast, Xand. No skipping breakfasts for at least the next five months.” Charlie’s dark eyes are stern again as he kneels on their bed and lays Xander down gently. His eyes drift down Xander’s body, lingering at abdomen-level, where they lose that stern look entirely. He reaches out and lays his hand on Xander’s baby-bump. “And a  _healthy_ breakfast. No boggles and . . . creamed cheese.”  
  
Xander laughs at Charlie’s disgusted face. Just as Xander can’t get past the idea of drinking pumpkin juice, his husband can’t stomach the thought of cheese that’s been creamed. He also can’t seem to pronounce  _bagel_  correctly.  
  
“Alright, Doc, no boggles. No creamed cheese. At least not for breakfast. Whatever you say. Now,” Xander agrees easily, pushing Charlie’s hand lower. “About my nerves and the calming of them. . . .”  
  


**Breakfast on the Fly**

  
  
Still flushed and tingling from a quickly cast cleaning spell, Charlie leads Xander downstairs, to the kitchen, where they find the usual morning chaos, somehow reigned over by Molly Weasley—and a peremptorily barking Jason—who directs children and adults alike to their breakfasts and out the door.  
  
“Charlie, Xander, your breakfasts are right here,” she calls, without even looking in their direction, and holding up a decent-sized basket that’s covered over with a large checkered napkin. Charlie and Xander glance at each other. Then at Molly.  
  
A second later Xander is taking the basket with effusive thanks—he’d meant to make their breakfasts, in an effort to practice his cooking skills, but the calming of nerves had taken precedence this morning—and a kiss to Molly’s cheek. Charlie’s a moment behind him, adding a big hug to go with the kiss, till Molly, shoos him with a:  _oh, go on, you’re already late!_  
  
With one more quick squeeze for Molly, he and Xander are making their way through the chaos and to the Floo, Jason barking after them in response to Xander’s:  _see ya later, Jase!_  He obediently stands in front of the fireplace, tail wagging, as Charlie, carrying Xander, enunciates: “Ministry of Magic!”  
  
Xander throws down the Floo powder, and they’re off.  
  


**The Commute**

  
  
Xander and Charlie hurry through the crowds of the hall, off to the section of special, long distance Floos. Barely anyone so much as glances at the robeless (as always) Weasley and the robed man who looks exactly like a young Tom Marvolo Riddle.  
  
 _I am,_  Xander thinks with great relief,  _a three days wonder. Let’s hope it stays that way._  
  
“Here we are, love.” Charlie steps to their right, in front of a huge Floo-point and a line of waiting witches and wizards. He tugs Xander to the back of the line— _the_  queue, Xander corrects himself, smiling—and pulls him into his arms for some pre-Floo cuddling.  
  
Charlie’s never been shy about showing affection, and likely never will be. It had once thrown Xander for a loop, but, as with many other things, the Wizarding world is more accepting of differing lifestyles than the Muggle world. Of course, he and Charlie  _used to_  get some stares, simply because a Weasley was demonstrating affection for a man who looked like the once-terror of the Wizarding world, the worst since Gellert Grindlewald.  
  
“This’ll be so brilliant,” Charlie sighs, nuzzling Xander’s ear, his hands spreading over the baby-bump automatically. Rita Skeeter has not yet found out about the pregnancy, or else the whole Wizarding world would know.  _But, with Charlie’s daddy-pride,_  Xander reflected with amused resignation,  _it’s only a matter of time_. “ _You’ll_  be brilliant, my love.”  
  
“Well, I’m glad at least one of us is so certain of that.” Xander’s hands come up to cover Charlie’s and he sighs. “Tell me I’m not gonna mess this up, and get roasted like a marshmallow. Or worse: fired.”  
  
“There’ll be no roasting and no sacking. You can do anything you put your mind to, love. You’ve already overcome so much that this? Will be a pie-walk, as the Muggles say.” Charlie presses a series of brief, but tender kisses to the junction between ear and shoulder. One of Xander’s hands comes up to cup Charlie’s cheek.  
  
“Last I’d heard, walking on pies wasn’t that easy. Or neat. In fact, it’s slippery and messy and there’s rhubarb fucking  _everywhere_ —ohhhhh.” Xander’s halted, mid-rant by Charlie biting a hickey into his neck, just where the kiss had been.  
  
“Love . . . just—relax. There are only three people in Wizarding Britain who speak Parseltongue. You’re one of them. You’ve already met three dragons and handled them beautifully—once even saving thirteen lives from a very wild, very canny Ukranian Ironbelly. You’ve got a Romanian Longhorn who loves you—“  
  
“But Percy loves  _everyone_ —”  
  
“—and a Norwegian Ridgeback we have good reason to believe, likes you, too.” Charlie snorts. “Norbert barely seems to tolerate even me or Gav, and might not even have intervened that night . . . even to save our lives, despite our long acquaintance. No,” Charlie murmurs as they finally, are at the front of the queue, “you’re special. You were  _meant_  for this . . . and  _this_ —” Charlie oh, so gently grasps Xander’s baby-bump in his hands. “And me.”  
  
Thinking that he’d also been meant for a lot of things by one Tom Riddle, and none of them good, Xander pastes on a smile as Charlie suddenly scoops him up as if he weighs nothing, and steps into the huge fireplace. Charlie kisses him soundly before he can grab the Floo-powder, and until Xander’s fake smile becomes a real one.  
  
The person that’d been behind them on the queue clears her throat impatiently and Charlie breaks the kiss with a frustrated moan. Grinning, Xander grabs a handful of Floo-powder and steels himself for the ride to Romania.  
  


**. . . And More Paperwork**

  
  
“Seriously, how do I look?”  
  
“You look fine, love.” Beat. “You  _look_  ravishing.”  
  
“Really? Well . . . you’re only saying that because you wanna ravish me, Hus-bear. Which I’m seriously hoping the other ‘keepers and dragons won’t.”  
  
A laugh that shortly doubles.  
  
“Honestly, love, you look absolutely . . . what’s that term you use?  _Groinable_?”  
  
A groan. “I  _wanna_  look professional! Mum and Hermione said this robe made me look very professional.”  
  
“It does. In that robe, I just want to take you to your fancy, professional new office, bend you over your fancy, professional new desk, and. . . .”  
  
“Charlie! No giving me a hard-on before I meet the dragons!”  
  
“My thinking was you wouldn’t be hard for long enough to be hard when meeting the dragons.” Pause. “And I’d get to hear you speak Parseltongue to me and  _only_  me for the last time before it becomes just another tool of the trade.”  
  
“Oh, Charlie. . . .”  
  
Another laugh, this one a bit melancholy. “Ah, don’t mind me. I’m just being a sap.”  
  
Rustle of fabric as one body stands, tugging another up with it, and wraps itself around and conforms itself to the other . . . as one body holds and explores another with urgent hands and hungry mouth. For long moments there’s nothing but this. Then:  
  
“You’re not being a sap. You’re being the man that I love. I wouldn’t want you to be anything else,” the first body adds in English. The second, still shivering from the first bit of statement that was in Parseltongue moans, pushing itself against its mate. They both groan then laugh wryly. “It’s a good thing a robe can cover a multitude of sins, huh?”  
  
“Indeed. I have a feeling I’m going to be walking around with this . . .  _multitude_  all morning, making the rounds with you and listening to you speak Parseltongue.”  
  
“Well . . . not  _all_  day. On his lunch-break, the new Dragon Liaison and Consultant really does expect to get bent over his desk, and. . . .”  
  
“Mm, far be it from me to disappoint my newest employee.” Beat. “But you’re also going to eat, too. No skipping lunch. Or any meals.”  
  
“Babe, has that ever been a problem where I’m concerned?” A snort off a skeptical look. “Okay, except for the couple of days around when you knocked me up? And even those had extenuating circumstances.”  
  
“Ah-ah, there’re no excuses, now. No circumstances, either—”  
  
“Uh, except for the part where I’ll be talking with dragons.”  
  
“—especially since Mum was nice enough to send lunch as well as breakfast with us.”  
  
“I’m lucky I’m able to walk after breakfast. Sheesh. I’m a little scared of lunch.”  
  
“Remember, love, you’re eating for two.”  
  
“Yeah . . . but I’m gonna weigh, like, five hundred pounds by the end of this pregnancy!”  
  
“And I’ll love every pound of you.”  
  
“I . . . smooth-talker. You  _would_  make me tear up right before I’m about to go meet a bunch of giant, merciless carnivores.”  
  
A chuckle. “Well, they’re not  _merciless_ , per say. . . .”  
  
“And once again, I’m reassured that I won’t end the day as dragon-chow.”  
  
A rustle of cloth as rough, ready hands find their way under layers of cloth. “If we had the time and the privacy, I’d get on my knees for you and suck those nerves right out of you.”  
  
“B-but we’re in Batchelder’s office. He’ll be back any second with those forms. . . .”  
  
“Well, I  _did_  say  _if_ , didn’t I, love? And in the meantime, we’re just talking. . . .”  
  
“ _Just_?” A breathy laugh. “Is this sign language you’re attempting with your hand down my jeans? Not to mention y-your tongue in my ear—God, Charlie—”  
  
“Have I ever told you how much I love your prick?” A humid whisper followed by a shaky chuckle. “I love everything about it. But I especially love the taste . . . love worshiping it with my mouth—”  
  
“Charlie, seriously, I’m about to c-come in my pants. In the Human Resources office of my new j-job. And my  _b-boss_  is the one stroking me off. This is all kinds of n-not-professional.”  
  
“Mm, but it’s  _so good_ , isn’t it? Pretending it’s my mouth on you. . . .”  
  
“Oh,  _Charlie_. . . .”  
  
“And after you come . . . after you come, I’ll lick my hand clean of the taste of you while you watch. Don’t you want that?”  
  
“ _Guh_. . . .”  
  
“Speaking of coming . . .  _come for me, now, Xander_.”  
  
“Ch-Char—”  
  
“ _Now_ , Xander. Come in my mouth.”  
  
“Oh, fuck—!”  
  
“ _Yes_. . . .”  
  
Silence. But for the sound of soft gasps, and then soft panting coupled with the nearly inaudible sound of a tongue gliding across a wet palm. Finally:  
  
“Y-you—y-ou—” is partnered by a graceless flop into a chair, shortly followed by a second, more graceful sitting. The licking has not yet stopped.  
  
“Mm . . .  _me_ , what?”  
  
“Are . . . amazing. And I love you.”  
  
“I love you, too. More than words will ever adequately convey.  _Scourgify._ ”  
  
The sounds of gentle, open-mouthed kisses are joined by the sounds of fabric rustling again as jeans are re-zipped and buttoned, and a robe’s clasps are closed once more with a satisfied pat. Said pat turns into a sustained rub of abdomen through layers of cloth.  
  
“Fuck.”  
  
“What?  
  
“Now, I’m ready to take a nap.”  
  
Both laugh again, and kiss lazily, separating a bit guiltily when the door to the office bangs opens and Batchelder comes bustling in with the forms, face shining, as he chatters about why the forms wouldn’t  _Accio_  in the first place—stuck in a closet under, of all things, an anvil.  
  
“Uh, why is there an anvil in a closet?”  
  
A surprised look. Then a huff, and: “Well, I’d say the real question is, why was it on top of my forms?”  
  
The pair looks at each other, shrugs then turn their attention back to Batchelder, who’s explaining, ad nauseam, what each part of each form is meant to do.  
  
Not once since they stepped out of the Floo and into the Stable, have they stopped holding hands.  
  


**Wet Feet**

  
  
“Hhhhhello, young wizard.”  
  
Xander grins up at Norbert—Charlie and Gavin had suggested he start with a familiar dragon, to get his feet wet—and rocks back on his heels.  
  
“What gave me away?” he asks, and Norbert hisses smoky laughter.  
  
“The robe, for one thhhhhing. And you hhhhhave gained an aura. Of one whhhhho has been practicing magic for another.” Cocking an eye at him, she laughs again. “You are also carrying a kid.”  
  
Xander gapes. Then blushes. “How’d you, uh, know  _that_?”  
  
Norbert snorts steam, but decidedly not in Xander’s direction. “I am a mothhhhher. I can scent anothhhhher mothhhhher.”  
  
“Uh . . . right . . . and speaking of motherhood, how’s Junior?”  
  
“See for yourself.”  
  
Norbert steps aside and, hiding behind her, much as he’d been the last time Xander had seen him, is a Junior who’s now the size of a small pony. Or maybe a regular-sized pony, Xander’s not up on the sizes of ponies.  
  
“Wow! You’ve gotten so big!” He takes a step closer and bends till he’s eye-level with the dragon kid. Junior blinks, but doesn’t shy back. Instead he, too, steps forward, tongue flicking out to scent the air.  
  
He finally hisses—but it’s  _just_  a hiss, not words. And it’s neither friendly nor frightened, simply an acknowledgement of Xander’s presence.  
  
 _There’s at least one dragon I’m gonna have to work to charm,_  Xander thinks, then mentally adds the Ironbelly to that list. Though according to Charlie and Gavin,  _that_  bit of trouble is only rarely present. He prefers the air away from so many wizards and so much magic, and enjoys the pleasure of his own company. He really only comes in to visit Norbert and occasionally for a free meal.  
  
“We may not see him back for weeks,” Gavin had said, something like relief in his voice. Since his recovery from the Ironbelly’s attack, Gavin has been understandably leery of that particular dragon, and somewhat hesitant around even the other, familiar dragons. At least according to Charlie, who says that time’s the only cure for that reticence.  
  
(“And hopefully it  _will_  cure soon. I’m . . . concerned about Gav,” Charlie had said as they lay in bed spooning, his hand coming up to rub Xander’s abdomen—something that both of them had a tendency to do when worried about something.  
  
“He’ll be fine, babe. After you, he’s the bravest man I know,” Xander had murmured sleepily, covering Charlie’s hand with his own and linking their fingers as a strange, ticklish flutter—as if Xander had swallowed a fairy, wings and all—emanated from just under where Charlie’s hand lay on his bare skin. This feeling had been occurring quite frequently since the beginning of the second month of Xander’s pregnancy, and increased to a point of happening at least several times daily—usually whenever Charlie touched his bare abdomen.  
  
Child calling to parent, and magic calling to magic, Molly Weasley’d said when Xander had shyly gone to her for reassurance, nodding sagely.  
  
At that present moment, however, despite the comfortable bed and the immense feelings of safety and love spooning with Charlie fostered, Xander had been too busy thinking about Gavin to really sink into the feeling . . . to  _commune_  with little Jakob, as he usually did.)  
  
Now, however, Gavin seems just as nervous as Xander, hanging back at Xander’s side instead of approaching Norbert with a mix of reverence and confidence, as he once would have. This change makes Xander rather sad.  
  
Swallowing his sudden melancholy, Xander picks up the gauntlet and steps into Norbert’s stall, into a fug of steam and dragon-breath, hands held out to calm with gesture, and—if possible—touch.  
  
Norbert huffs a gout of steam that destroys every wrinkle in Xander’s clothes, but nonetheless leans forward with an amused rumble. Behind Xander, Gavin’s breathing has picked up audibly.  
  
Xander can’t help but remember a time when their situations were somewhat reversed.  
  


**High Paise, Low Spirits**

  
  
“You were amazing out there. A true natural.”  
  
Xander, in the midst of filling a small cup with water from the cooler—dragon-charming is hot, thirsty work—starts a little, sloshing the water, but not spilling, and looking up with a smile.  
  
“Meh, I just hissed at some big reptiles and flapped my arms around to keep their attention,” he tells Gavin, who smiles his slightly haunted smile and leans against the wall next to the cooler.  
  
“I’d say you did a wee bit more than that. Everyone’s still talking about you. Including the dragons, if I’m not missing my guess with all that hissing and rumbling going back and forth throughout the Stable.” Gavin quirks an eyebrow and Xander blushes. “Ah, I was right, then.”  
  
Xander knocks back his water, cold and refreshing, and refills his cup. “Well, they’re just not used to a human who speaks dragon-ese. Come tomorrow, they’ll all be sick of the sight of me.”  
  
Laughing, Gavin shakes his head. “I somehow doubt that, friend.”  
  
Grinning, Xander swills more water. “Whatever. As long as I can help keep these guys happy and content—keep misunderstandings and . . . excitement to a minimum, I’ll be happy.”  
  
“Aye . . . excitement isn’t exactly a grand state of affairs for a dragon preserve,” Gavin says, his smile slipping, his pale skin going even paler. Large dark blue eyes seem even larger and more defenseless than usual in Gavin’s boyish face.  
  
Frowning, Xander puts his cup on top of the cooler. “Listen, Gav—”  
  
“Anyways, I’ve gotta be off! Paperwork won’t do itself,” Gavin announces brightly, faking up a lively smile and straightening. He won’t meet Xander’s eyes. “I’ll see yas later, eh?”  
  
“But—”  
  
Gavin’s already hustling off down the narrow hall with a curt wave back at Xander. He passes Batchelder’s office, a janitorial closet, Charlene Malcolm’s office, and finally Charlie’s, before turning a corner.  
  
Sighing, Xander finishes his water, crumples the cup, and tosses it. Then he makes his way in the opposite direction, to his own office, to start a log of the day’s events.  
  


**Lunch-Break**

  
  
“Harder?”  
  
“God, yes—” Xander hisses in Parcels-Tongue. Charlie chuckles.  
  
“I’ll take that as a  _yes_  
  
And indeed, Charlie’s more than happy to comply, adding a little more power to each successive thrust and changing up his serve just enough that when he hits pay-dirt, he hits it  _hard_.  
  
Xander wails at the top of his lungs, his fingers twitching not three inches from a paperweight on which Charlie had set a soundproofing spell the moment Xander had entered the office . . . harried and worried about their friend and ready to bury himself in paperwork of his own. So distracted was he that he’d been completely startled to find his husband sitting at his desk, bare feet up on it, still otherwise dressed, but stroking his exposed cock slowly, a look of naked hunger and anticipation on his face.  
  
“Uh—”  
  
Charlie had smiled and locked the office door with a word. With another word the room had been soundproofed.  
  
“D’you know what time it is, Mr. Weasley?” he’d asked in a rough purr. Xander had shivered.  
  
“Uh—” he’d said again, and Charlie had chuckled. “Whuh-huh?”  
  
“That’s right. It’s practically lunchtime. And as I recall, someone in the room wanted to get bent over his own desk, and . . . well, that next bit was left to my imagination.” Charlie had moaned, his eyes fluttering shut as he stood up, still stroking. “But, oh, what I’ve been imagining.”  
  
“Guh?”  
  
And at some point, Xander’s feet had decided to carry him across the room, for that  _guh_  had been partially swallowed by a demanding kiss. Strong hands had settled on his ass and pulled him closer till hardness met burgeoning hardness, and his husband moaned again, and began to undress him the old-fashioned way.  
  
Since shortly thereafter, when the last of his patience had run away before he could remove Xander’s t-shirt, Charlie’s ever-so-considerately had Xander bent over his own desk. A Christening, of sorts, for the office, one that Xander—still wearing nothing but his  _Spirits of ‘35_ t-shirt and one blue sock—could fully get behind, were it not already behind him and in full swing.  
  


**Lunch-Break: The Sequel**

  
  
Having decided that putting in at least an appearance in the lunchroom was the better part of discretion, Xander and Charlie—and Molly Weasley’s basket—step into the half-full lunchroom to scattered applause and snickers.  
  
“Oh, hush up, you lot,” Charlie says tersely, turning a bit red, but not as red as poor Xander. “You’ve got dirty minds, is what you’ve got,” he adds with a lofty sort of defensiveness, squeezing Xander’s hand and leading him around the room, to a table at the right end of which sits Gavin—and, of all people,  _Lily_.  
  
“Hullo, Gav. Lil-sweetheart, I didn’t know you were paying us a visit, today!” Charlie says, pulling out a chair for Xander, then sitting, himself. Lily grins, as bright as her Weasley-red hair. But her face is all Harry: softened, feminized angles and delicate jaw, but the same fierce green eyes.  
  
“Well, I wasn’t, originally, but since Mum’s being so . . . understanding and . . . off with the Harpies, I wanted to get in as much reservation-time as possible before she comes back and starts guilt-tripping me into not going. Again.” Lily sighs heavily, rolling her eyes and leaning her chin on her hands. “Dads was the one who said I’d best do it now. If not for him, I’d still be faffing about in my room, throwing tantrums over silly things.” She smiles a little sheepishly. “Dads is the best.”  
  
“That, he is.” Charlie and Xander share a glance and a chuckle. Harry’s one of the only reasons Xander’s been allowed to leave Wizarding London at all, let alone to work with such potentially destructive beings as dragons. Harry has an incredible pull with not only Kingsley Shacklebolt and Alastor Moody, but with the Wizengamot, as well. “He’s the one Xander and I are still thanking for making it so that Xander could accept a job offer to work here as our Liaison. Today’s his first day and he’s already very popular among the dragons,” Charlie adds proudly.  
  
“And not just the dragons, or so I’ve heard,” Lily says archly, eyebrows raised. Xander turns even redder and leans in to whisper to Charlie: “Was that rock really soundproofed?”  
  
Charlie nods once, quickly, and begins unpacking their lunch. “It’d be wonderful if everyone around here minded their own business and didn’t plant licentious ideas in my niece’s already dirty mind.”  
  
“ _Everyone_  meaning  _me_ , of course,” Gavin says mildly, eyeing the contents of the lunch basket with serious consideration.  
  
“Of course, meaning  _you_. You’re the only one at this table with no tact and no respect for authority.” Charlie snorts and Gavin laughs, helping himself to a sandwich. One of several that’d been in the basket. Following his lead, so does Lily, with a whistle and a soft:  _Gram made these? I want one!_  
  
“None, whatsoe’er,” Gavin agrees, taking a bite of the sandwich, and rolling his eyes in apparent ecstasy. “Blimey, Xander, I didn’t know you had such fantastic culinary leanings, or I’d have come to dinner a long time ago!”  
  
“Actually, you’re eating a Molly Weasley sandwich. A Xander Weasley sandwich would’ve been messier and I’m thinking not as, um, edible.” Xander sighs, and Charlie pats his hand before liberating a sandwich from the basket for his husband. Oh, sure, Molly’s been patiently teaching Xander to be a better cook, but it’s been slow going.  _Very_  slow. Though Charlie eats everything Xander makes as if it’s manna from Heaven. He believes firmly in bolstering self-esteem and positive encouragement where Xander is concerned—it’s something, he senses, of which Xander’s never gotten very much. . . .  
  
“Lily Nymphadora Potter! I see you going for that second slice of apple pie!” Charlie says sternly. “There’re only the two and Xander’s getting the other one. You’ll not be taking food out of his and your cousin’s mouth!”  
  
Rolling her eyes, Lily sighs and moves her hand from the pie. Gavin nudges her kindly. “Buck up, kiddo. There’ll be other pies.”  
  
“Erm, yeah. Other pies,” she agrees, turning a look of not-so-pure worship on Gavin, who’s still practically eyebrows-deep in his sandwich, and doesn’t notice. Charlie’s eyes narrow as Lily inches a bit closer to a still oblivious Gavin. . . .  
  
“Babe . . . you’re squeezing all the  _good stuff_  out of that sandwich,” Xander leans in to murmur disapprovingly. Charlie looks down and sees that he has indeed squeezed most of the bacon, lettuce and tomatoes out of his sandwich.  
  
Xander sighs melodramatically and pushes Charlie’s hands, with the destroyed sandwich, down to the napkin. “Such an ignoble death for such a great BLT. I’ll see that you get justice, my friend,” Xander adds in a whisper . . . to the sandwich . . . and with an opaque look at Charlie, who rolls his eyes.  
  
“I love you . . . but you’re a very strange man,” he says, and Xander crooks an eyebrow. Takes a bite of his own sandwich and eyes Charlie once more.  
  
“I’m telling Mum you’re skipping meals,” he says finally, and Charlie winces. Then he heaves another sigh and goes about the laborious task of reassembling his sandwich. A tough enough job, made even tougher by Xander stealing pieces of bacon and slices of tomato, each time intoning: “Godspeed to sandwich-Heaven, boys!”  
  
Gavin and Lily find it amusing, anyway.  
  


**Waiting for Percy**

  
  
“This is gonna sound so weird, but I’ve missed that dragon,” Xander says as he, Charlie, Gavin, and Lily complete the half-mile trek to the hillside Percy favors—direct sunlight for most of the day, perfect for napping on—and sit at the base. According to Charlie, Percy’s been due for a visit for some time. As many of the dragons at the preserve do, Percy only comes for visits, but makes his permanent home elsewhere.  
  
Oddly enough, however, Percy does  _not_  come to visit the other dragons, with whom he is only acquainted, but to visit the humans who work there, seeming to be especially fond of Charlie and Gavin.  
  
 _Perhaps,_  Xander thinks,  _Percy is the dragon that’ll help Gavin’s nerves disappear for keeps. Even_ I’m _not afraid of Percy_.  
  
“Not weird at all, love. Percy’s a very . . . miss-able dragon. And he was the first you ever met. You always remember your firsts.” Charlie smiles wistfully, squeezing Xander’s hand. Thinking of his first slay (Jesse); his first kiss (Cordelia); his first  _time_  (Faith); his first time saving the world (zombies); his first slayer dead under his watch (a girl named Leah . . .  _not_ , Xander’s own, also-dead slayer, Amina); his first  _time_  with another man (Ethan-fucking-Rayne), Xander’s mouth purses and he stays mum on the subject of firsts. He chooses instead to change it slightly.  
  
“Are you sure he’ll come today?”  
  
“Pretty sure,” Charlie says, grinning. “He’s been coming here for the past few days. Whenever I get a chance to come see him, I’ve been telling him about all that’s happened since the last time I saw him. Now that I know that he understands what I say . . . well, it only seemed right to explain our absence.”  
  
“So he’s all caught up, is he?” Xander laughs, putting a hand on his stomach and leaning back in the grass on the other. “That’s good. Because my throat is starting to get sore. I can’t imagine telling the  _Tale of Charlie and Xander_  in anything less than . . . twenty-three chapters. And probably a lot more than that! And think of all our  _future_  hijinks!”  
  
“’Hijinks,’ eh?” Charlie’s grin widens and he leans over to kiss Xander. “Sounds like fun.”  
  
“Oh, I’ll remember you said that when it’s time to change Jakob’s nappies. And when he’s got colic. And when he’s teething.”  
  
Charlie groans. “Well, as long as I’m not having all these, er,  _hijinks_  by myself.”  
  
Once more, Xander remains mum, instead choosing to examine a dandelion near his knee. . . .  
  
“Xander!”  
  
“What—I was just admiring the scenery. Really beautiful out here, and—oh, look, there’s Percy!” Xander scrambles gratefully to his feet, the others, including an overwhelmed Charlie, only a second behind him.  
  
For in the distance, winging his way toward them, is a blue-green dragon with intricate golden horns, curling upward like a head-dress. It is, in a word: majestic.  
  
And getting close  _fast_.  
  
Within seconds, it’s closed the distance between them and is hovering above the hill, kicking up dust and grass as it lands. Charlie is smiling again, as if he’s seeing an old friend. Gavin looks pale once more, and at least somewhat uncomfortable.  
  
Lily looks like she’s fallen in love.  
  
“ _Wicked_ ,” she breathes, striding up the hill without waiting for everyone else.  
  
“Oi!” Gavin calls after her worriedly, climbing up the hill in her wake, though there’s a moment during which he takes a deep, fortifying breath before doing so. Charlie, for his part, takes Xander’s hand with a tender smile and they start up the hill together. Percy touches down lightly, and folds his wings. Imagining how this must look from a distance, Xander figures Percy must wreathe the top of the hill like some sort of dragon ornament, or a coronet.  
  
“Hello, Percy!” he calls in English, waving, and Percy trumpets a mighty  _hello!_  back. Gavin covers his ears. Lily squeals with delight and grabs for one of Gavin’s occupied hands and drags him up the hill faster, already gabbling away in Parcels-Tongue at Percy. Percy seemingly takes her and her heavily accented Parcels-Tongue in stride. And by the time Xander and Charlie get up the hill, she and Gavin are already sitting tailor-style once more, Lily petting Percy’s snout and telling him, still in Parcels-Tongue, how beautiful and  _regal_  he is.  
  
Next to her, with a wondering look on his face, Gavin’s eyes dart between girl and dragon. He doesn’t even flinch when Lily grabs his hand again and puts it to Percy’s snout—only starts petting, as well, that floored, wondering look still on his face.  
  
His nerves seem to have vanished.  
  


**Quittin’ Time**

  
  
“ . . . so  _gorgeous_  and charming. . . !”  
  
Lily can’t stop going on about Percy. Her eyes have a moony look Xander claims he usually only associates with something called  _Sailor Moon_.  
  
Gavin, still looking gobstruck, punches out at the time-clock and puts his punch-card in its place. “Aye, that, he is. He’s always been something of a revelation. There’s not another dragon like him.”  
  
“He’s a prince among dragons,” Lily says dreamily, sighing. Charlie and Xander share a look that’s rather amused, at least until Lily grabs Gavin’s hand—not for the first time that day—and turns an equally dreamy, if slightly different look on him. “You’ll have to come to dinner at the Burrow and help me tell my Mum  _all_  about it!”  
  
“Your  _Mum_?” Gavin squeaks, trying to free his hand, but somewhat half-heartedly. "Isn't she on tour with the Holyhead Harpies?"  
  
Lily waves her free hand. "Lately she's been making an effort to be home for dinner of a night. Supposed to make us all closer as a family." She snorts. "At any rate, if a professional dragon-keeper can tell her about a dragon like Percy, maybe she’ll ease up on  _forbidding_  me to get an internship here!” Lily bounces in place like a girl-shaped football.  
  
“But—Charlie—”  
  
“Oh, he’s tried, but Mum has a hard head. Thinks he’s biased. But you—you’re an objective bystander . . . sort of.” Lily cocks her head thoughtfully. “Plus, I think my Gram would  _love_  you. And Dads might even put in an appearance.”  
  
“Blimey!  _Harry Potter!_ ” Gavin exclaims, making moony eyes of his own, no doubt thinking of his collector’s cards. Despite the fact that Harry had signed about two dozen of them when Gavin was in St. Mungo’s, recovering from the Ironbelly attack—despite the fact that the savior of the Wizarding and Muggle worlds had been by to visit several times . . . admittedly while Gavin was still in a healing-coma—Gavin is still what Xander would call a “fanboy” and would never have enough Harry Potter-related anything.  
  
Something Lily seems to twig to in that moment. A sly smile crosses her face for a second then disappears under innocence thick enough to go sledding on.  
  
“Oh, yeah. Dads’ll probably be there. That’s a definite maybe,” she adds, taking Gavin’s hand, and Charlie frowns when he doesn’t let it go. “You’ve met him before, right?”  
  
“Erm, sort of. . . .”  
  
“C’mon, babe. It’s quittin’ time,” Xander says, nudging Charlie and taking the now slightly crumpled punch-card from Charlie’s hand and punching it for him—despite rules against doing that very thing—then placing it back in its holder.  
  
“You know, I think Lily’s got a thing for Gav,” Xander whispers a few minutes later, when they and a bunch of other dragon-keepers are trooping toward the Floo-point. Ahead of them, still holding Gavin’s hand, Lily’s talking about Merlin-only-knows-what, wringing Gavin’s hand for emphasis. Gavin’s walking along with her as one dazed. “And Gav . . . kinda doesn’t know what hit him.”  
  
“He’d better not. . . .” Charlie mutters, not realizing he’s wringing Xander’s hand till Xander frees it with some trouble.  
  
“Better not . . . what? Break her heart?”  
  
“Better not  _anything_!”  
  
Xander snorts. “Sweetie, she’s nearly twenty.”  
  
“And Gavin’s thirty-five!”  
  
“Really?” Xander whistles. “He looks barely older than her.”  
  
“Well, he  _is_  older than her. By sixteen years!”  
  
“Um . . .  _you’re_  older than  _me_  by nineteen years.”  
  
“Well—but—that’s totally different!” Charlie turns pink. Xander takes his hand again, prying apart his fingers to link with them.  
  
“How so, oh, Cradle-Robber?”  
  
“I’m not—that’s not funny!” Xander stifles his laughter when Charlie glares. “You’re thirty-three. You’re an adult. Have been for a while. You have experience with the world. But Lily? She’s barely an adult, and she’s lived a sheltered, relatively charmed life. She’s never had her heart broken. Never wanted something she couldn’t get.”  
  
“Oh, I think that she won’t have much of a problem getting Gavin, either.” Xander snorts again, swinging their hands. “And for what it’s worth, Gavin’s a good, loyal guy. I think he’d break his arm before he broke Lily’s heart.”  
  
Charlie sighs. They’re at the Floo-point, and almost within earshot of Lily and Gavin.  
  
“He’d just better not,” Charlie growls, and leaves it at that.  
  
Xander rolls his eyes and takes Charlie’s arm fondly. “I love you, dragon-tamer.”  
  


**Home, Again**

  
  
When Charlie steps out of the fireplace, Xander in his arms, Gavin’s gazing around the Burrow livingroom agog.  
  
Charlie puts Xander down and Jason immediately rushes over to him, barking happily. Xander scoops him up and gets crup-kisses.  
  
“Gram’ll be in the kitchen, and everyone else’ll be  _Apparat_ ing or Floo-ing in pretty soon,” Lily says to Gavin.  
  
“This is . . . amazing. . . .” Gavin turns around in an awed circle, then stops, his attention snagged by the photos adorning the mantle. Seeing his interest, Lily drags him over to the fireplace. Charlie and Xander step aside. “I’ve read about this place in history books, but I never thought I’d  _see_  it!  _The_  Burrow! Blimey!”  
  
“Yep. And this is the family. Most of them, anyway.” Lily points at the first row of pictures, in which Weasleys and Prewetts smile and wave, adults and children alike. “That’s my great-grand uncle, Uther Prewett—he’s Gram’s grand-uncle. And there’s Esmerelda, Uther’s sister. . . .”  
  
Catching another glare on Charlie’s face, Xander puts Jason down and tugs his husband into his arms for intensive nuzzling. Finally, Charlie sighs and nuzzles back. Shortly, the nuzzles turn into kisses that make Xander moan softly.  
  
“Think we have time for some, uh, stress relief before dinner?”  
  
Charlie’s eyebrows shoot up. “Depends on how fast you like your stress relief.”  
  
“Mm, I think for right now, I like it hard and fast. . . .”  
  
“Then I think we have the time.”  
  
“Well, what’re we waiting for?” Xander and Charlie glance at Gavin and Lily. They’re still absorbed in the mantle and the photos thereon. Smiling and frowning, respectively, Xander and Charlie sneak their way toward the hallway and the stairs, when the fireplace makes a familiar sound. Gavin and Lily jump out of the way just in time for Harry Potter to come rolling out with a groan.  
  
He finally stops rolling near Molly’s chair and sprawls flat on his back.  
  
Glancing at each other, Xander and Charlie heave identical sighs and go to help Harry up.  
  
“Thanks, you two,” Harry says, dusting himself off and looking around with a half-smile. He spots Lily and goes over to her, kissing her on the forehead. “Hullo, Lil.”  
  
“Dads! You’re here! See—” Lily turns to Gavin, sliding a proud arm around Harry’s shoulders. He does the same. “I  _told_  you he’d definitely maybe be here!”  
  
“I—I—” Gavin stutters, and Harry looks at him, squinting despite his glasses.  
  
“Oh, hullo, Gavin. Good to see you up and around,” he says, grinning and holding out his hand for shaking. “I’m Harry. Harry Potter.”  
  
Looking down at Harry’s hand, Gavin stammers: “I—you—that is—what I mean to say—” Gavin takes a deep breath and holds out his own hand. The wrong one. “It is an  _honor_  to meet me, sir,” he says fervently, and promptly crumples to the floor in an unconscious sprawl.  
  
Everyone looks down at him for a few moments. Then Lily makes an exasperated sound. “ _Dads!_ ”  
  
“What? What did I do this time?” Harry asks, both startled and confused, holding up his hands in surrender. Lily makes that exasperated sound again and kneels next to poor Gavin. She chafes his hand tenderly, and after a few second he moans and begins to stir.  
  
“There, there, Gavin, it’s alright,” Lily murmurs softly.  
  
“As much as I want it hard and fast . . . I kinda wanna see what happens when he wakes up, too,” Xander whispers to Charlie, who’s smiling grimly and nodding approvingly at a still confused Harry.  
  
“Me, too,” he says with great satisfaction. Just then, Molly comes into the livingroom from the kitchen, wiping flour off her hands and onto a dish towel.  
  
“What’s all the racket, in here? I—oh, dear!” Upon spotting Gavin, still prone, but definitely showing signs of life, she rushes to his other side.  
  
“Are  _all_  the Weasley women falling under a spell?  _Gavinus Infatuatus_?” Charlie demands to no one in particular. At which both Lily and Molly shoot extremely similar glares at him, before turning back to Gavin.  
  
“Da?” Gavin is burbling, still only half-conscious. “Da, I had the  _best_  dream . . . I dreamt I met _Harry Potter_. . . !”  
  
Charlie sighs again, Harry taking up the refrain and rolling his eyes. Xander can’t help but snicker.  
  
It’s going to be one . . .  _interesting_  dinner.


	25. Knitting the Raveled Sleeve of Care

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Xander’s been having trouble sleeping. Molly and Charlie worry. Rita Skeeter gets her story. And Jakob has his say . . . unfortunately it’s not enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes/Warnings: Canon compliant for both ‘verses. M-Preg. Set post-Chosen by about eleven years, and post DH/e by ten years (I fiddled with timelines a bit). Spoilers for BtVS “Chosen” and DH/e.  
> Disclaimer: I didn’t do a damned thing.

“Are you  _sure_  you don’t want me to come with you, babe? Keep you company?”  
  
Charlie finishes buttoning his red plaid shirt in front of the mirror, and smiles over at Xander, who watches him from the comfort and warmth of their bed, clearly still half-asleep.  
  
On Saturdays, before eight in the morning, Xander’s always—at best—half-awake. Before sun-up? Full consciousness is but a literal dream. Except, of course, when he and Charlie wake up canoodling . . . in which case Xander’s  _very_  wide awake. But this morning, well . . . Xander has been so tired all week, Charlie hasn’t the heart to start any canoodling despite waking up as hard as ever.  
  
Today, he was determined, Xander’s natural sleepiness of a Saturday morning would let him get the rest he’d been going without all week, despite earlier and earlier bed times.  
  
“I’m sure, love,” Charlie murmurs softly crossing the room to sit gently on the bed and brush Xander’s hair away from his face. Xander smiles and sits up a little, but Charlie pushes him back down and kisses his forehead. “Every once in a while I have to put in an appearance on Saturdays. Hazards of being the head-keeper. But that doesn’t mean  _you_  have to. Go back to sleep.”  
  
“’Kay . . . wait, no, Charlie,” Xander whines ever so slightly. “Who’s gonna keep you company? Who’s gonna make sure you eat lunch? Who’re you gonna surprise at some random moment by bending him over his desk?”  
  
“Gavin, Gavin, and . . . Batchelder.”  
  
Xander rolls his sleepy eyes and whaps Charlie’s arm. “Dick.”  
  
“The very culprit.”  
  
Yawning, Xander blinks up at him. “You won’t get too lonely?”  
  
Charlie smiles tenderly. “Love, you and Jakob are always with me, no matter where I go. I’m _never_  lonely. I love you.” He leans down to cover Xander’s rounded, t-shirt-covered stomach, and the child resting within, with lingering kisses. “And I love you, Jake,” he whispers, splaying his hand over the spots he’d kissed.  
  
When he looks up, Xander’s blinking again, and wiping at his eyes. “Damn pregnancy hormones. Fuck. You should go unless you wanna see a grown man who  _hasn’t_  been kicked in the balls cry like a little girl.”  
  
Laughing, Charlie sits up and kisses Xander’s forehead again. “The sooner I go, the sooner I’m back.”  
  
“By noon?”  
  
“By three?”  
  
“Noon.”  
  
“Two?”  
  
“Noon.”  
  
“One? One is more than fair.”  
  
“Yes. Yes, it is. But I don’t play fair. Noon.”  
  
Charlie sighs, but kind of wants to smile, too. “Twelve-thirty?”  
  
“Well, if you’re gonna be a hard-ass about it, fine, twelve-thirty.” Xander sighs, too then holds out his hand for shaking. When Charlie takes it and shakes it, Xander grins. “We have ourselves a deal, Mister. No breaking it for make-work or anything that you can delegate to Charlene or Gavin.”  
  
“Which of us runs this dragon-preserve again?” Charlie wonders aloud. Then he’s laughing as Xander pulls him down into a good-bye kiss that makes it nearly impossible to leave.  
  


*

  
  
Xander’s sleep is even more patchy and unsatisfying after Charlie’s gone. So, by the time the sun is up, so is Xander. Up and dressed in his usual Saturday attire of his old jeans and one of Charlie’s big plaid shirts.  
  
Hand on his belly, he shuffles blearily down to the kitchen, Jason at his heels, to help Molly start preparing breakfast, as he has been on week days. His cooking skills have, over the months since he and Charlie moved into Charlie’s old room, improved greatly, though they’re definitely still not on par with Molly’s. But Charlie’s stopped making that fake-happy face he used to whenever eating Xander’s cooking—has even made for-real happy-faces more than a time or two—and that’s certainly progress.  
  
“Oh, dear, you look dreadful!” Molly says, when getting a good look at him, her pleasant face going from smiling to worried in the space of a nanosecond. Xander dredges up a smile of his own. It feels limp and watery. Like a dead fish.  
  
“Be careful, Mum, or you’ll turn my head with all these compliments.”  
  
“Oh, pish!” Molly comes over to him and puts a hand on his forehead. “Well, no fever. But you look as if you haven’t been sleeping.”  
  
 _That’s because I haven’t been. Not really._  “Sure, I’ve been sleeping! Sleeping plenty! I’ve got sleep coming out my—uh, ear.” Xander laughs, and it, too, reminds him of a dead fish. “I could be selling sleep by the pound!”  
  
“Hmm.” She stares at him hard. “Has it been  _good_  sleep?”  
  
“All sleep is good sleep when you’re pregnant—can I get an  _amen_?”  
  
All Xander gets is a stern glance, instead. So he sighs. “Okay . . . maybe not the best sleep.”  
  
Molly sighs, too, looking worried again. “Well, I’d march you back up to bed, but I doubt more bad sleep would help. Hmm,” she says again, tapping her chin. “When Charles gets home, let him know you’ll be taking the day to go see that Medi-wizard Braden on Monday. I’ll go with you, if you like.”  
  
But her stalwart face says that she’ll be going whether he likes it or not.  
  
Xander sighs again. He’d just been to see the Medi-wizard on Wednesday. Not that he doesn’t enjoy seeing Doc Braden, and doesn’t always get enjoy getting a clean bill of health regarding his pregnancy—so far—or great tips on how to  _stay_  healthy. It’s just that . . . well, Xander doesn’t know  _what_  it is. Just that his own ideas on why his sleep is less than . . . restful . . . aren’t exactly what anyone else would take seriously. At least he doesn’t  _think_  they would.  
  
“I can’t just take time off without notice—” he begins, but Molly cuts him off with a look.  
  
“When it comes to your health and the health of my grandchild, you certainly can. And I have a strong feeling that Charles would say the same.” She nods firmly, taking Xander’s arm and leading him to the trestle table. “Now, sit. I’ll make you breakfast, and you can tell me if you’ve been having other symptoms besides disturbed rest.”  
  
Somehow, magically, already at the table and sitting without his brain’s cooperation, Xander suddenly feels heavy and tired. But then, he’s kind of been feeling that way for the past eight days. Slowly but surely getting heavier and tireder. “Really, I’m fine,” he lies, halfway through a titanic yawn. Then, off Molly’s  _look_ : “I mean,  _yes, Mum_.”  
  


*

  
  
The idea of staying home alone, bored, is out of the question for Xander, as is getting more sleep. So when Molly gets ready to go to Diagon Alley, Xander’s not above begging to go with her.  
  
And begging.  
  
And begging.  
  
And making a puppy-face that rivals Jason’s—an actual puppy’s—face. While holding up said puppy up as a coup-de-grace.  
  
“Oh, alright,” she says finally, already robed and standing in the fireplace, about to throw down the floo-powder. But she puts it back and steps out of the fireplace, withdrawing her wand. “I suppose I can  _Apparate_  us both there, like I did last time. I’m certainly not  _carrying_  you through the Floo-point.” She snorts.  
  
Xander whoops and puts down Jason to go get his robe and wand. “I promise I won’t throw up on your shoes like I did last time!”  
  
“Well, I hope not.” She sighs, shaking her head. “But the moment you start looking just a  _tick_ more peaky than you already do, it’s straight home, for you!”  
  
“Yes, Mum!” Xander calls, just a bit winded, from his sudden sprint to the top of the staircase, and resolves to not look any peakier. Though he does get a bit dizzy.  
  
“Not even a tick,” he tells himself firmly, looking in the mirror in the bedroom, till the dizziness passes. He runs his hands through his hair, gathering it up and tying it back with a piece of ribbon. He makes a few weird faces, checks out his thus-far-robeless profile (Jake’s going to be a _big_  baby), and sticks his wand in its inner pocket of his favorite robe—the sable-and-green one in which Charlie can’t keep his hands off Xander . . . though that could be any robe, really—and makes his way back down to the livingroom.  
  


*

  
  
Xander does  _not_  throw up on Molly’s shoes. Not even close.  
  


*

  
  
Like magic, by eleven a.m., Molly is done with her shopping—and Xander’s done with his . . . a few trinkets and oddities he thought Charlie, Gavin, Molly, Lily, and Harry might like and a book on baby lore from  _Flourish and Blotts_ —and is ready to go home . . . though she lets herself be talked into ice cream at  _Florean Fortescue’s_ , which has become Xander’s favorite place in Diagon Alley. And after the things he’s ordered there,  _everyone_  knows his name. Especially the counter-witches who work Saturdays.  
  
Molly gets a plain chocolate cone, and Xander—settling in for a nice long order at the counter—gets chocolate, too . . . topped with sprinkles, walnuts, sautéed onions, hot fudge, black olives, and crumbled pretzel bits. All in a newspaper cone filled with French fries covered in vinegar.  
  
“Want a taste?” he offers Molly, first appropriating a fry for himself and making sure it gets its share of ice cream and toppings. The gooey, dripping mess gets hastily shuttled to his mouth before it can mess up his robe, a hot-cold treat for Xander and for little Jakob.  
  
 _Absolute. Nirvana._  
  
Molly shakes her head  _no_ , smiling a somewhat seasick smile. “You go on, dear. I’ll just . . . live vicariously through you. . . .”  
  
Xander shrugs, putting away two fries with twice the toppings.  
  
Spot? Completely hit.  
  
Xander even feels the gentle flutter that he only used to feel when Charlie touched his bare stomach. Now, Xander feels it when Charlie’s touching him, and even when Charlie’s  _not_ touching him. Usually when he’s waking up and Jakob wakes up with him. Or when it’s night, and Jakob can’t sleep—how Xander knows the baby can’t sleep, he doesn’t know, and he doesn’t tell anyone for fear of sounding foolish—and is . . . restless. Well, as restless as a fetus who hasn’t yet kicked or otherwise moved can get, that is.  
  
Sometimes, Xander gets the flutter the strongest when Jakob is sleeping and . . . dreaming. Or so Xander’s best guesses and . . . mommy-sense tell him. Sometimes, when Charlie’s fast asleep and sawing wood, Xander simply lays there in the dark, one hand on his stomach, the other holding Charlie’s hand on his stomach as well, willing Jakob’s restlessness or dreams into rest _ful_ ness.  
  
It works as often as it doesn’t. Though the  _doesn’t_  has mostly been happening this week. Xander’s been falling asleep and staying asleep through Jakob’s dream-cycles, despite the flutters and their intensity. But that sleep has been less than satisfying, and rife with his own intense dreams that Xander forgets upon waking.  
  
Now, as he eats his messy fries and ice cream, he wonders if he should tell Molly about this particular development. Or even Doc Braden. Neither of them have a habit of discounting the things Xander tells them. In fact, they both take him very seriously. It’s just that. . . .  
  
Xander sighs. He still doesn’t know what it is that keeps him from telling someone about what he suspects is the root of his sleeping problem. He knows that he’s still healthy and so is Jakob, and that a little lost sleep never hurt anyone, even and especially a pregnant  _man_. . . .  
  
He also knows from his reading up on male pregnancies that tiny non-issues have a way of turning into big problems, even miscarriages.  
  
“Mum . . . can I, uh, ask you something?” When Molly looks over from the window and her people-watching, with gentle concern, a small smile gracing her motherly face, Xander feels a little silly for waiting so long to open his mouth about it.  
  
“Of course you can, dear. Anything at all,” she says, eyes flicking over Xander’s shoulder to the door for a moment, widening, then narrowing. “Though now might not be a good time. Trouble’s just walked in.”  
  
Blinking, Xander is confused for a moment. Then he looks over his shoulder. “Oh,  _shit_!” He looks away quickly, in the hopes that she hasn’t seen them. But that’s a pretty hopeless hope, since he can all but feel her drifting over to them—can hear the chatter and gasps in her wake.  
  
It’s all headed in his and Molly’s direction.  
  
When she stops behind Xander— _not_ , is it to be noted, touching him. Xander doesn’t make a habit of hitting women who aren’t slayers looking for a sparring partner, but he’d certainly make an exception for Rita Skeeter—Molly stands up, every inch the righteous, protective mama-bear. “And what is it  _you_  want?”  
  
Xander can practically hear the simpering, and still doesn’t look up. He just continues eating now tasteless fries, his appetite having fled.  
  
“And a good morning to you, Mrs. Weasley. And Mr. Weasley,” Rita Skeeter laughs her tinkling, fake laugh. “I was simply enjoying the sights of Diagon Alley when I happened to notice none other than  _Tom Riddle_  eating ice cream in Florean’s fine establishment! Of course, it took me a moment to realize you are  _not_  Tom Riddle . . . are you?”  
  
Flushed and angry, Xander shrinks in his chair, strongly reconsidering his life-philosophy on the striking of women.  
  
“You know very well he’s not, Ms. Skeeter,” Molly says coldly. “And when you say things like that, you’re only stirring up something that’s been laid to rest for months.”  
  
“That’s where you’re wrong, Mrs. Weasley.  _Nothing_ ’s been laid to rest, nor will it be till the mystery of the man who looks and talks like Tom Riddle is solved. And I  _do_  intend to . . .  _solve_ you, Mr. Weasley,” Rita Skeeter leans down to murmur in Xander’s ear, and he flinches away, afraid that if he looks at her, right now, he really  _will_  deck her. He’s even got Jakob fluttering and tingling around in his stomach—not moving, not so that Xander can feel it, but awake and affected by what Xander’s feeling. So he tries to calm himself.  
  
“Ms. Skeeter, if you have any questions about me, you can direct them to the Ministry of Magic. Or to  _The Quibbler_. If you’ll recall, my husband and I gave them a very candid interview a couple months back,” Xander adds politely, unable to help the dig.  
  
“Ah, but Ministry non-speak and actual answers are two different beasts, are they not?” Rita Skeeter laughs again. “And anyway, I’d prefer the latter from the horse’s mouth, as it were.”  
  
“And I’d prefer a million galleons, but wish in one hand, shit in the other and see which fills up faster,” Xander says flatly, looking up, now.  _Gaudy_  and  _tacky_  are two words that don’t even begin to describe her outfit, especially for a Saturday morning stroll through Diagon Alley.  
  
Her smile is as hard and meaningless as unearthed diamonds. “Such . . . quaint Americanisms. One supposes you don’t  _really_  sound like Tom Riddle all that much, after all.”  
  
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”  
  
“Take it however you like, Mr. Weasley.” Rita Skeeter shrugs daintily, her floating pen scribbling on a seemingly endless piece of foolscap. “At any rate, I thought I’d stop in and say  _hello_  since, what with your dragon-taming, you haven’t been seen much in Wizarding London, lately.  _Hello_ , and of course,  _congratulations_.”  
  
Xander grows cold. “What do you mean  _congratulations_?”  
  
One platinum eyebrow quirks and she glances down at Xander’s robe-covered, but obviously no longer trim mid-section. He almost covers his stomach with his hands, but refrains from giving her the satisfaction. Or the scoop. Right now, he senses, she’s just got suppositions and is digging for confirmation.  
  
And thankfully, Molly comes to his rescue then. “Not that it wasn’t lovely chatting with you, but _good-bye_ , Ms. Skeeter,” she says coldly.  
  
Rita Skeeter’s eyes tick between them, sly and wry, and she shrugs again. “I’ve got what I came here for . . . a chance to offer salutations and congratulations—and I do wish you the best of health and luck . . . Mr. Weasley—though I suppose I had best take myself off. My article for the Sunday  _Prophet_  won’t write itself . . . though I think it just did.”  
  
And with a wink for Xander, she’s sashaying out of the ice cream parlor, more chatter and whispers in her wake.  
  
When the door closes behind her, there are goggling glances at Xander, of the kind he hasn’t gotten in months.  
  
“Welp! I’m done!” Xander exclaims brightly, but feeling more tired and heavy than ever. Standing up with the remains of his ice cream and fries—more than half of it is left—he takes it to the trash bin. Molly sighs and does the same, laying a hand on Xander’s arm.  
  
“Pregnancy never stays a secret for long, dear . . . she’d have found out sooner or later,” she says sympathetically. Xander snorts.  
  
“Yeah. But I was hoping it’d be around the time Jake graduated from Hogwarts.”  
  
With waves for the confused-looking counter-witch, Xander and Molly leave arm in arm, packages levitating steadily ahead of them.  
  


*

  
  
At twelve-thirty on the dot, Charlie quietly opens the door to their bedroom and peers in.  
  
Xander is lying on his side, facing away from the door, in Charlie’s spot, on top of the coverlet. He’s wearing his old jeans and one of Charlie’s shirts, his bare toes twiddling as he turns the page of some book or other. Probably a history book—since becoming a part of the Wizarding world, Xander’s discovered a passion for the subject that’s even impressed Percy—if Charlie knows Xander. And he does.  
  
Charlie watches him for a while, his heart full and his brain empty. He doesn’t know what to say—what sort of comfort is needed, if any.  
  
“It wasn’t the way I wanted the world to find out about Jake,” Xander says suddenly, softly, without looking up. He snorts. “But I guess it’s the fastest, most efficient way.”  
  
“Ah, Xand—”  
  
“Mum told you what happened, right?”  
  
“Yes. . . .” Charlie comes all the way into the room, closing the door as quietly as he’d opened it. “I wish I’d been there. I’d have hexed her into next week.”  
  
Xander laughs, and looks over his shoulder. He still looks tired, and red about the eyes, as if he’s been crying. “C’mere, sexy.”  
  
Charlie smiles, and sits on the bed and Xander moves over, into his own spot. Charlie kicks off his boots and socks, and lays down, pulling Xander into his arms and spooning with him. Xander sighs and his somewhat tense body relaxes against Charlie’s. Charlie kisses the back of his head, removing the ribbon that ties his hair back and nuzzling it.  
  
“You smell good.”  
  
“So do you.”  
  
“I smell like parchment and dragons.”  
  
“Both good smells.  _Charlie_  smells.”  
  
Charlie grins and slides his hand under the plaid shirt to rest on Xander’s rounded stomach. Xander sighs and laughs shakily. “I just wanna go to sleep in your arms and stay that way till Jake is born.”  
  
“Maybe you  _should_  try to sleep. I’m here. I’ll be here when you wake up,” Charlie murmurs, kissing Xander’s ear. “Sleep, love.”  
  
“Can’t.”  
  
“Why not?”  
  
“Dunno,” Xander says with a watery sniffle. Charlie sits up a little and catches a look at Xander’s wet face before Xander buries it in the pillow.  
  
Frowning, Charlie glances at the thick tome Xander’d been reading—not, as he’d surmised, a history book, but an old-looking one that Charlie’s never seen:  
  
Estrella Alban’s  _Dream into Waking Life: Bringing the Subconscious World into the Conscious Mind_.  
  
“Xand,” Charlie begins, still frowning, picking up the book with a grunt—heavy, old thing—marking the page number, closing it, and placing it on Xander’s night table. It nudges an open bag of Bott’s Every Flavor Beans that’s already dangerously near the edge of the table. “Love—”  
  
“You know what?” Xander says, looking up again and wiping his tired, peaky face, his two-tone eyes in twin seas of irritated red. “I think we’ve had enough spooning. Wanna fork?”  
  
“Xander.” Charlie laughs a little, and Xander’s smile, though sweet, is as watery as his sniffle. “I love you very much.”  
  
“I love you, too.” He sits up to meet Charlie half-way with a soft kiss, his hand covering Charlie’s where it rests on his abdomen. As the kiss turns from chaste to heated, Xander moaning and sighing into it, Charlie starts getting hard, pushing himself against Xander’s thigh. And things are progressing nicely when all of a sudden there’s movement under his hand.  
  
The hand on Xander’s stomach.  
  
Charlie breaks the kiss, wide-eyed and gape-mouthed. Xander blinks at him with hazy ardor and impatience—then he blinks. “Oh, that?” He laughs breathily, squeezing Charlie’s hand and moving it to follow the arc of imperative motion under their hands. “The kid’s been doing that since I lay down. On and off,” he adds, his eyes sparkling with a mixture of humor, happiness, and exhaustion. “At first, I think it was a revelation for him, all this motion. Now, I think he’s just showing off.”  
  
Charlie barks a happy, startled laugh, his own eyes starting to sting at the backs, marveling at each fluttery, tiny kick under his hand, even as Xander’s face looks momentarily discomfited. “He’s really putting his foot into it,” Charlie notes dazedly.  
  
“You’re tellin’ me . . . you should feel it from  _this_  end!”  
  
“Oh, Xander,” Charlie leans in for another kiss as their hands link together over the last of the kicks and jabs. “You’re amazing!”  
  
“ _Me_?” Xander looks amused again, and  _be_ mused. “How’m I amazing? I’m getting sport-kicked by my own kid. And I think the kid’s winning. This isn’t exactly setting a good-parenting precedent.”  
  
“You’ve given and are giving me everything I’ve ever wanted. You  _are_  everything I’ve ever wanted. And I know I don’t always tell you, but . . . you’re beautiful, wonderful, and the best thing that’s ever happened to me, and I love you.” Charlie says in one worshipful rush searching Xander’s eyes intently. Then he’s kissing Xander again, hard and uncoordinated, his hands coming up to cup Xander’s face as Xander rolls onto his back, legs coming up to bracket Charlie’s when Charlie positions himself between Xander’s thighs.  
  
“Bloody hell, love,” Charlie breaks their kiss again to say wonderingly, his smile gobsmacked and huge. “We’re havin’ a  _baby_!”  
  
“That, we are,” Xander’s smile is fond and still so very sweet. Too sweet not to be kissed, so Charlie does, laughing into the kiss. Xander’s arms wrap around his neck. Charlie rolls them over, so that Xander’s on top of him—at a rather gravid four and a half months, it’s no longer comfortable for either of them to make love missionary-style. Of late, they make use of the spooning position, and a position Xander calls  _the cow-girl_. Or, if he’s feeling especially wanton, they’ll use the  _reverse cow-girl_ —and straddling him.  
  
“ _Divestio_ ,” Xander murmurs throatily, without touching his wand . . . which is probably in his robe, as he has a tendency to leave it there.  
  
“You know, we’ve become quick hands at that charm,” Charlie murmurs as Xander’s warm skin slides along his own in an all-over caress. He sits up a little and reaches behind Xander to stroke the curve of his arse then push gently between his cheeks to brush at Xander’s puckered, pulsing entrance. “That, and  _Lubricio_ , too,” he adds, swallowing Xander’s gasp with a hungry, demanding kiss as he pushes into Xander’s tight, fluttering, clutching heat with two rather insistent fingers.  
  
“ _Charlie_ ,” Xander moans, leaning their foreheads together, his breathing technically panting as Charlie stretches and prepares him.  
  
“I barely got any of my work done, today, for thinking about exactly this,” Charlie whispers, brushing a kiss against Xander’s lower lip. “I was bloody useless. Gavin had to pick up my slack. Then  _he_  bloody-well sent  _me_  home! My own employee!”  
  
Xander chuckles breathlessly. “I’ll have to get him a  _thank you_  card— _oh! Charlie!_ ”  
  
“Xand, Xand, Xand,” Charlie chants, hitching Xander closer and kissing a trail down his throat. He’s three fingers in and deep enough that Xander’s started hissing in Parseltongue. Charlie smiles, removing his fingers carefully, despite Xander’s whine at the loss, so he can arrange his husband above him just so. . . .  
  
“I’ll bloody-well give Gav a  _promotion_ ,” he swears, as Xander begins to sit slowly, with Charlie’s steadying, helpful hands on his hips. Soon the tip of Charlie’s prick brushes his opening, then begins the sweet, tight, determined push  _in_.  
  
Then Xander’s biting his lip, lowering himself onto Charlie faster, hissing like a cobra as he does, eyes half-shut shut and lashes fluttering. The pulse at his throat is rapid and steady under Charlie’s reverent lips.  
  
“I  _love you_!” he says fiercely, with every fiber of him in agreement and in tandem. “So very much!”  
  
And Charlie doesn’t say much else for quite some time.  
  


*

  
  
Xander’s fast asleep by mid-afternoon, and Charlie, spooning behind him, is drowsing as well, hand on his husband’s stomach, smiling at the occasional, seemingly random kick.  
  
Their son is going to be strong . . . a fighter. Like his fathers.  
  
In the golden, westering light, Charlie’s contented, aimless eyes fall upon the heretofore forgotten book on Xander’s night table.  
  
Curiosity piqued again, he carefully, oh, so carefully disengages from Xander—who rolls onto his side facing Charlie—reaches over his sleeping husband, and lifts the heavy tome with a grunt. He sits up, putting the book in his lap and opens it. He flips to the page he remembers Xander being at, and starts reading.  
  


*

_  
  
Xander wakes from a dream within a dream, with a small smile and tears on his face. He savors the last of this second dream, unwilling to open his eyes because he knows that upon doing so, he’ll lose the dream forever, if not the joy it left behind. . . .  
  
No, he won’t so much as move, to hold onto it all for as long as possible. . . .  
  
But a cool gust that causes him to shiver decides the matter, and he yawns a jaw-cracker as he levers himself up out of what feels like a comfortable and hard to get out of rocking chair—of the kind he’s been hinting at an obtuse Charlie for weeks that he wants—and makes it upright with some effort. Upon standing up—barefoot on bare ground, from the feel—he finally opens his eyes and finds himself frowning at a looming, rather creepy forest, made more so by a strangely stark dusk.  
  
Blinking and looking around him—the chair is gone, but at his back, in the distance, is a familiar-looking castle, huge and ancient, and though he can’t immediately place it . . . safe—he can only wonder: _ What the  _hell?  
  
“Uh. . . .” Xander says, one hand going to his stomach, the other reaching out for . . . and before he can really wonder for what, a small, warm hand takes his own reassuringly. Xander looks down to see a young boy, perhaps five, perhaps six, in a silver and green robe and black necktie, staring up at him with huge dark eyes out of a peaky, freckled little face framed with thick, thatchy auburn hair.  
  
“That’s Hogwarts. I’m to go there, one day. Again,” he adds in his scratchy, English, precise little boy-voice. He’s missing one front tooth and whistles a little when he talks. But he’s nodding back at the huge castle and, glancing at it again, Xander can place it from maps and history books, in a moment of extreme _ duh _. Which would make this uninviting tangle of trees and fright ahead of him—  
  
“And that’s where _ you _have to go. The Forbidden Forest,” the kid says unnecessarily, squeezing his hand and tugging on it, till Xander gets the idea and goes laboriously to one knee. He and the boy look each other in the eye for long moments, as if taking each other’s measure.  
  
Finally the boy cracks a familiar smile—a _ Weasley _smile—that transforms his solemn little face. And Xander feels a tug from somewhere in the region of his heart, because this boy, this child suddenly looks, with his freckles and open, sunny grin, exactly like his father. His_ other _father.  
  
“Jake?” Xander reaches up to touch the boy’s cheek, but the boy looks away, toward the Forest, his grin fading into a worried look that’s far too old for his gamin face.  
  
“You won’t remember this, I suppose. You never do. But you have to _ try _to remember, or it’ll all go_ wrong. Again _.” The boy sighs heavily and bites his lip—one of Xander’s bad habits. “You have to go to the Forest to find them. The unicorns. They’re the only ones who know the oldest magic. The kind that_ he _used to Curse me. The kind it’ll take to save us both. Firenze might take you safely. Sort of.”  
  
“Whuh?” Xander asks absently as his fingers finally brush the boy’s soft cheek and he lets out a completely manly sob, unable to resist hugging the child to him. After a moment of palpable surprise, this boy, _ Xander’s son _, hugs him back with small, wiry arms that hint at future strength.  
  
“I love you, Jakob,” Xander whispers, tears rolling down his face. “I love you so much, and I’m so glad you’re here.”  
  
“And I . . . I care for you, too. Dad,” the boy says, as if surprised to hear even those words come out of his own mouth. “It’s rather strange . . . my last father was terrible. Never really wanted me, never really cared for me. But you and Charles are different, you’re—” another heavy sigh, and Xander doesn’t know what Jake is saying, and doesn’t really care, so long as he keeps on saying it with his beautiful little voice. “—not what I expected.”  
  
Xander only reluctantly lets go of Jake just enough to look at him again. The boy’s scowling through tears that he swipes at impatiently.  
  
“Bugger,” he says, just as precise as everything else he’s said thus far, and Xander laughs. Again, Jake seems surprised, but then he starts laughing, too. For a few moments, anyway, as uncertain and underused a thing as Xander’s ever heard. _ But that will change, _Xander promises himself and his son. One thing Jakob Arthur Weasley will be quite used to in his life is_ laughter _.  
  
As if hearing this promise, Jake tilts his head and stares at him with eyes that are so dark, they’re nearly black in the strange dusk air. He reaches up and cups Xander’s cheek.  
  
“I don’t suppose I deserve another chance, after all,” Jake says softly, regretfully. But then his voice firms and his eyes harden with conviction. “But neither do _ you _deserve to die. And that’s exactly what_ will _happen if you don’t go to the unicorns when it’s time for me to be born. I’m Cursed to die, and _you_  will die with me, Xander.”  
  
Xander smiles reassuringly. “No, that’s—listen, kiddo, you’re safe and healthy, and doing even better than Medi-wizard Braden could’ve expected, or your father and I could’ve hoped for. You’re so _strong _. And I’ll be strong_ for _you. We’ll both be fine.”  
  
Jake’s shaking his head _ no _. “No . . . we won’t. Nothing will ever be fine.” Jake sighs again, his hand falling away from Xander’s face as he looks back at Hogwarts again, as if memorizing it against never seeing it again. “For what it’s worth . . . I’m sorry.”  
  
And the despair coming off of Jake in waves moves something in Xander—breaks through a wall of protective ignorance that’s become as familiar as Xander’s favorite robe—and he says:  
  
“You want me to find unicorns?”  
  
Jake turns wide, surprised eyes to him and, after a moment, nods once, warily. “I’ve been Cursed with death, and the only thing that can nullify such a Curse is the touch of pure life. The benediction of a unicorn. A unicorn of the Forbidden Forest.”  
  
Laughing a little wryly, Xander runs his hand over Jake’s thatchy hair. Musses it until Jake makes an annoyed, affronted sound. “Kid, I love you more than life itself, but if you think I’m waltzing in _ there _while_ carrying you _—”  
  
“You don’t have any other choice.” Jake says flatly then takes a breath and lets it out as a wry smile. “Firenze can take you. As I said, you’ll be safe with him. Mostly.”  
  
“Who or what is a _ Firenze _? Please say it’s a brand of flame-thrower, or sawed-off shotgun.”  
  
Jake’s grin shows off the space where his tooth will—hopefully—be coming in. “Firenze is a centaur. He teaches Divination at Hogwarts. The first decent Divination professor the school’s seen in ages. You’re best off talking to Hagrid first, and letting him talk to Firenze for you.”  
  
“Uh-huh,” Xander says, as if any of this makes any kind of sense. “Hagrid, I’ve read about in_ Hogwarts: A History _—which I’m still reading, by the way—and heard about from Harry and Ron. But is this centaur guy just gonna wanna go into the Forbidden Forest to help some pregnant dude he doesn’t even know find unicorns?”  
  
Jake shrugs stolidly. “He might. But he might not. Either way, he’ll probably be expecting you.”  
  
Xander snorts. “What is he? Psychic?”  
  
“Quite.” When Xander’s mouth drops open, Jake laughs and, after a tiny bit of reticence, hugs him shyly, but tightly. “He teaches Divination . . . some psychic ability is to be expected, if not demanded. Though I must offer one caveat: Just because you need him doesn’t mean he’ll make it easy for you. Whether or not you and I live or die is really none of his lookout.”  
  
Just as Xander’s really getting into the hug, and memorizing Jake’s warmth against never feeling it again, Jake lets him go and steps back clearing his throat.  
  
“Well.” He adjusts his robe and tie and stands as stiff as a statue. “I finally feel as if some head-way has been made. Excellent. _ If _we both survive my birth, I am satisfied that you and Charles Weasley will make . . . more than adequate fathers.”  
  
“Jeez, you’re _ so _English.” Xander rolls his eyes. “But I can’t wait to meet you when I’m awake. Can’t wait for you to meet your other father. He loves you so much.” He laboriously levers himself to his feet once more. At the last second, Jake tugs on his arm to help—not that it does, but it’s the thought that counts. “We both do.”  
  
Jake looks up at him with intent, intense eyes that shine like twin bottomless lakes. “Then promise me you’ll find the unicorns. Even if Firenze can’t or won’t help you, promise me you’ll go.”  
  
“I . . . promise,” Xander swears, holding out his hand for shaking. Jake blinks at it for a moment, then takes it with his small one and pumps it exactly three times before letting go. “And I promise I’ll try to remember when I wake up. Firenze. Forbidden Forest. Unicorns.”  
  
“And remember to stay on the Path. But I imagine Firenze and Hagrid’ll go over that with you, if nothing else.” Jake nods with satisfaction. “And I’ll keep giving you . . . reminders of what we’ve discussed here, tonight.”  
  
“Does that mean you’re going to keep kicking me like I’m a soccer ball?”  
  
“Possibly. In fact, quite probably.” That grin shines out again, but decidedly not Weasley-ish. Not quite. It’s somewhat darker—puts Xander in mind of Faith’s grins—post-rehabilitation, but still somewhat dark and wry. “But I’ve been known to . . . allow myself be soothed by Chopin’s nocturnes.”  
  
Xander’s brows draw together. “I don’t suppose there’s any chance you like _ Spirits of ‘35 _or_ The Howling Wolves _? Or possibly_ The Doors _?”  
  
Jake quirks one disdainful eyebrow and doesn’t even bother to say _ no _. “I’m rather partial to Op. 72, No. 1—E Minor. I’m certain it will make a superb . . . lullaby for me,” he says, sniffing as if the idea of a lullaby is quaint, but perhaps not in a way of which he disapproves.  
  
And for a few moments, silence reigns once more, as father and son take each other’s measure again.  
  
“Who are you?” Xander asks finally, softly, and Jake’s grin turns into a startled, bitter grimace as he looks away. “Who are you and how do you know all this stuff? The music, the magic, the_ everything _?”  
  
“I . . . am no one of consequence. I’m someone even _ I _wish to forget. Someone death couldn’t quite erase, but hopefully rebirth will.” Jake rocks back on his heels a bit, shoving his hands into his robe pockets and looking down at the ground. “I am, in spite of all that came before, _your son_ , now. And I care for you, as deeply as I am able. You’ve cherished and cared for me more than anyone I can remember. Even in the few months we’ve been acquainted, and I—” straightening out and standing almost at attention, Jake meets Xander’s eyes squarely. “I will not allow . . . our family to be torn asunder by the Curse of a thrice-dead monster.”  
  
Taking a few moments to digest that, Xander finally smiles, tears in his eyes—who _is _Jake that he hasn’t even been born, yet, and already carries the weight of a past life and an enemy powerful enough to Curse him with death?_ Who is _this child that Xander loves without knowing?—and holds out his hand, saying in a shaky voice: “Well. That’s good enough for me. What say we get outta here?” Jake’s eyes widen and he takes Xander’s hand without hesitation, but wonderingly, as if he expects Xander to yank his hand away at the last second.  
  
Xander squeezes his hand, and turns their backs on the Forest, and they begin the walk toward the castle: Xander walking as carefully as possible in his barefoot state, but still managing to step on every rock in their road, and Jake speaking rather longingly of the feasts at Hogwarts; the _ bloody brilliant _enchanted ceiling; the Sorting Hat ceremony (something which sounds a bit creepy to Xander . . . a singing, telepathic hat is not something even Sunnydale prepared him for); and finally of the Library and its Restricted Section. This last he speaks of with the most glee.  
  
“So . . . you’ve been to Hogwarts, before,” Xander ventures when Jake pauses and swings their hands a little, just like Charlie does. Gives Xander a sidelong glance, the way Charlie sometimes does when he’s trying to find the right words to say something. It makes Xander’s heart skip beats.  
  
“Once, yes. Once upon a previous life.” Jake snorts. “It was . . . horrible for me. Wonderful, too, but horrible. I don’t suppose my natural inclination toward being . . . something of a snarky bastard . . . made it any easier on myself, though.” A soft sigh. “But this time . . . this time will be different. _ I’ll _be different. I’ll be a bloody_ Weasley _. They’re always popular. Maybe I’ll even be a . . . a_ Gryffindork _.” Jake makes a face and mutters something that sounds like:_ Dunderheads _, and Xander laughs.  
  
“Probably not . . . not if the Parcels-Tongue thing breeds true,” he reassures his son, whose face perks up. Ahead of them, the welcoming lights of Hogwarts draw nearer, and behind, the Forest is, for the moment, forgotten. “You’ve literally got Slytherin in your DNA.”  
  
“There _ is _that. . . .” Jake hisses and whistles in Parcels-Tongue, through the gap in his teeth. Through his father’s Weasley-grin and below his dark, dark, stranger’s eyes.  
  
_

*

  
  
Xander blinks in the sudden sunlight and bolts up, breathing hard.  
  
He’s alone in bed, and it’s . . . mid-morning, judging from the quality and direction of the light illuminating his and Charlie’s bedroom.  
  
 _Sheesh, I slept almost around the clock,_  he thinks, rubbing gritty eyes and scratching his chest. As usual, of late, his hand slides down to his stomach, under which a flurry of seemingly impatient kicks starts up, just as his stomach growls.  _And that explains why I woke up: you’re hungry._  
  
Shoving himself out of bed, Xander debates showering over simply  _Scourgify_ ing himself, finally deciding he’s too hungry for the ten minutes it’d take to shower. And anyway, showers are no fun without Charlie to spice them up. . . .  
  
Though a cleaning is definitely in order. His feet and ankles are, for some reason, as dusty as if he’d been rambling barefoot outside in his sleep. He wiggles his dirty toes and sighs.  
  
 _Great. Let’s add sleepwalking to my list of . . . quirks, shall we? That’ll go over well. Though I suppose if I was sleepwalking, Charlie would have noticed . . . right?_  
  
When no other explanation for the dust—which is also, Xander notices, on the right knee of his sweatpants—comes to him, he shrugs and puts it out of his mind for the moment.  
  
A minute later,  _Scourgify_ ed and dressed in jeans and Charlie’s shirt from yesterday—it still smells of Charlie, and of parchment and dragons—Xander opens the door to find Jason keeping guard outside of it, if those doggy snores are anything to go by.  
  
“Hello, familiar, mine.”  
  
Jason twitches awake and barks excitedly until Xander picks him up for a cuddle and crup-kisses. “C’mon, bark-machine. Let’s go get some breakfast.”  
  


*

  
  
“Good morning, gorgeous family!” Xander announces as he steps into the kitchen. Molly, Arthur, and Charlie look up from their cooking, newspaper, and coffee rather grimly. Xander’s smile fades and he puts down Jason, who immediately makes for his bowl. “Okay . . . not-so-good-morning, gorgeous family?”  
  
The three share a look before Charlie stands up and comes over to Xander for a hug and a kiss, folding Xander into his arms. “Good morning, love.”  
  
“I’m thinking that remains to be seen . . . what’s wrong?” Xander leans back to look into Charlie’s face then at Molly and Arthur, who aren’t meeting his eyes. But they don’t need to, for the moving picture on the front page of the  _Prophet_  has, as has the large, bold typeface, caught Xander’s eye:  
  
There’s a picture of Xander—at his most pregnant-looking, despite the robe—walking (waddling, really) with Molly into  _Florean Fortescue’s_.  
  
 **Tom Riddle Doppelganger Expecting! Alexander Weasley Six Months Pregnant!**  
  
“Hey, now, I don’t look  _six months_  pregnant! I’m not  _that_  fat . . . yet,” Xander jokes, pointing at the newspaper. Arthur glances down at the  _Prophet_ , then hurriedly closes and folds it.  
  
“Er. . . .” he begins, and Molly whaps him with her dishcloth.  
  
“I’m sorry, love,” Charlie murmurs against his cheek, bussing it. “She has no shame.”  
  
“Agreed.”  
  
“But after yesterday, it was hardly unexpected, was it dear?” Molly says kindly. Xander laughs a little.  
  
“I guess not. But the least she could do is get her timeline right.” He huffs, and lets Charlie hold him close again. “Anyway, it’s cool. It’s totally  _whatever_. This just saves me from having to tell everyone outside the family. Now, everyone in the Wizarding world knows and—and—” Xander trails off, at a loss as he lays his head on Charlie’s shoulder, tears springing to his eyes. Charlie hushes and shushes him tenderly, promising him that everything will be alright.  
  
Even Jason’s foregone his breakfast to come whine at Xander’s heel.  
  
“That bitch,” Xander breathes, clutching at Charlie. “I shoulda decked her when I had the chance.”  
  
Charlie sighs and holds him tighter.  
  


*

  
  
By the time breakfast is ready—quite without Xander’s help—he’s ready to turn the subject away from the shameless Rita Skeeter, and onto happier topics.  
  
Well, maybe he isn’t  _ready_ , so much as Jake starts kicking him again shortly after the smells of breakfast become impossible to ignore.  
  
“Oof,” Xander groans, putting a hand on his stomach and rubbing to soothe the suddenly motile child within. Charlie, holding his other hand, glances over at him.  
  
“Everything alright, love?”  
  
Xander smiles wanly. “Yes. Your son’s just started bending it like Beckham in there, again, that’s all.”  
  
Charlie’s eyebrows shoot up. “Bending what like  _who_?”  
  
Snorting, Xander pulls Charlie’s hand to his stomach. “Kicking, hon. He’s kicking me again.”  
  
“Ah,” Charlie laughs, following the movements gently, like an explorer following a trail on a very old, very faded map.  
  
Molly, meanwhile, has gasped and dropped her spatula, Arthur his newspaper. They’re both looking across the kitchen and across the table, respectively, as if Xander just spoke Russian.  
  
“Oh, yeah,” he says, blushing and smiling. “Your grandson started kicking me yesterday afternoon, and has barely stopped since to catch his breath . . . I don’t suppose you’d wanna maybe get in on some of this sweet, rub-Xander’s-belly action—”  
  
But Arthur’s already standing up and making his way around the table, grinning like someone just handed him a piece of Muggle technology. Molly is moving a pan off the fire and wiping her hands on her apron.  
  
Xander and Charlie share a glance and a shrug then Charlie’s helping Xander to his feet. For a few moments, the kicking slows slightly. Then Molly’s tentative touch brings renewed flurries of kicking that don’t even slow down when it’s Arthur’s turn to touch Xander’s stomach.  
  
 _Despite the Rita Skeeters of the world, kiddo, you’re gonna be so loved. That, I promise you,_ Xander thinks with the fiercest determination he’s ever felt. And he closes his eyes on a few tears that want to fall . . . seeing on the backs of his lids a small boy with auburn hair that surrounds his face in a wild thatch, pale skin, and Weasley freckles on a face that’s all Xander, otherwise . . . though those eyes are darker than Xander’s own ever dreamed of being. They’re like bottomless lakes off of which reflect moonlight. . . .  
  
Then Xander’s shaking his head and dismissing the boy and tears, winnowing his mind back to the present. “I’m sorry, what was that?” he asks Arthur, who smiles and repeats himself. Xander gapes then groans. “Oh, jeez, no. I didn’t know Charlie was a kicker, too. And throughout the second half of the pregnancy, as well? Night and day? You don’t say. . . .”  
  
“Well.” Charlie clears his throat and turns red under his husband’s semi-resentful glare. “At least the boy comes by it honestly.”  
  
Everyone, even Xander laughs at that, while under their loving hands, Jakob Arthur Weasley kicks out a message in baby-SOS to which no one pays the least little bit of serious attention.


	26. Best. Christmas. Ever.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Xander dreams Christmas Eve morning away. Charlie notices. Charlie wonders. Charlie doesn’t let it spoil their Christmas

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes/Warnings: Canon compliant for both ‘verses. M-Preg. Set post-Chosen by about eleven years, and post DH/e by ten years (I fiddled with timelines a bit). Spoilers for BtVS “Chosen” and DH/e.  
> Disclaimer: Ah, if only they were mine. . . .

_”It’s getting closer,” Jake says as they walk along the lake, He kicks a stone not out of frustration, but out of resignation. The stone skips almost merrily ahead and Xander could kick_ himself _.  
  
“I know, little man,” he says softly, guiltily, squeezing the small hand in his own. For once, the air around them isn’t that of dusk or twilight, but of a strangely flat fall day. The sky is bright, but overcast and in the near distance, Hogwarts stands like a sentry. “I’m sorry. Each time I’m here with you, I tell myself: _ This’ll be the time I remember it all when I wake up. _And each time I wake up completely blank, except for the vague feeling that I’ve forgotten something. Three steps from my bed and even that feeling is gone.”  
  
Shaking his head, Xander sighs, his other hand coming up to rest on his stomach—more comfort for himself than for the babe within—than for the small boy who walks at his side.  
  
Jake gives him one of those sidelong glances that remind Xander so much of Charlie. “You have to _ want _to remember, you know.”  
  
Xander sighs again. “You think I don’t?”  
  
“Part of you must not.” And to that Xander has no response, at first, because what if Jake’s right?  
  
“I want you to be born healthy and happy, and to have a long, happy life, with me there to witness as much of it as possible,” Xander says finally, his voice rasping with unshed tears. “I wanna be your dad more than  _anything_.”  
  
“You already _ are _my dad,” Jake says matter-of-factly, swinging Xander’s hand as they forsake the banks of the lake for a path toward the castle. In all their ramblings around the Hogwarts environs, he and Xander have never actually made it to the castle before Xander awakens. He doubts they will this time, either. “You just have to be willing to commit to the role.”  
  
“I am. I am,” Xander promises, wincing, stopping, and kneeling. Jake stops with him and goes readily into his arms, more readily than the time before that and the time before that. And so it has gone since the first such dream. “I love you, little man. Don’t ever doubt that.”  
  
“I don’t,” Jake says, his voice choked and unhappy. “I just doubt that it’s enough. To save us.”  
  
“Love can change the world. Can _ save _it. Take it from me,” Xander whispers fervently in his son’s ear, and Jake laughs a little, a hopeless, wry sound.  
  
“I shall endeavor to believe if you shall endeavor to remember,” he says, not without an irony beyond his seeming years. An irony that’s not lost on Xander, who only hugs his boy tighter.  
  
“We have ourselves a deal, little man.” He leans back and brings their foreheads together. “Don’t lose hope or faith in me, yet.”  
  
Jake’s dark dark eyes—black as bottomless lakes—search Xander’s own, and he sighs, himself, smiling when Xander gives him an Eskimo-kiss. “It seems I am helpless to not lose either, for I still feel a deplorable excess of both simply because you ask it of me.”  
  
Xander grins and hugs Jake to him again. “That’s what I like to hear. What can I do to keep that hope/faith train rolling in your heart, baby?”  
  
He can feel Jake’s smile on his neck, gentle and fond. “For now, you can wake up.”  
  
“What?” Xander frowns, but doesn’t let go. It’s gotten harder and harder to let go of Jake each and every time they hug. At this moment, it’s practically impossible—just the thought makes tears gather in his eyes with the threat of spilling over. “Did you say—”  
  
“Wake up, love,” Jake insists in a voice that’s far deeper than his usual small-boy voice, and not nearly as precise or formal. He leans back, his face serious, and looking more like Charlie’s than ever. In fact, the resemblance, which is usually only passing, noticeable in expression and smile, is now uncanny. Xander reaches up to touch Jake’s cheek and even feels faint stubble.  
  
“Jake, _ what—”  
  
“You fell asleep in your office, again. Poor love,” Charlie says in gentle but worried tones as Xander’s fingers brush his cheek. Xander blinks and yawns, stretching and looking around him at the familiar space of his office . . . which somehow feels wrong. So he refocuses on Charlie, kneeling in front of him, instead, because Charlie  _always_  feels right. Sees the love and concern there and feels an all-too-familiar guilt in response. “C’mon, time to punch out and go home.”  
  
“Jeez, I’m so sorry, Charlie,” he husks, clearing his throat and sitting up in his apparently way too comfortably transfigured chair. “I don’t mean for this to keep happening, but—”  
  
“But you’re  _exhausted_ , love. Especially since we’re in, as you call it, the home-stretch,” Charlie smiles and reaches up to caress Xander’s cheek. “Medi-wizard Braden said you’re going to be more and more tired approaching the birth, that your energy, physical and mystical, is all going toward keeping little Jake healthy, so that there’s precious little left for you to do anything else with . . . frankly, I’m amazed that you haven’t gone on paternity leave, yet.”  
  
Xander snorts at Charlie’s unsubtle hint and lets himself be pulled to his achy feet as Charlie stands up. “Babe, as long as I’m still healthy, and can still speak Parcels-Tongue, I can still do the portion of my job that doesn’t involve sitting in comfy chairs and staring at boring paperwork. And even  _that_  part I’ll find some way of doing without falling asleep,” Xander promises, but doubtfully. Then he’s grinning as Charlie pulls him close for a kiss and a hug.  
  
“And the Dreamless Sleep isn’t helping.” It’s not a question. Xander sleeps, yes, but they both know he’s still dreaming, and vividly, every night. So vividly that even sleep is no real rest for him. Or likely for Jakob, as well.  
  
“Not a  _lot_. But the Doc said it was a watered-down version since I’m preggers. . . .”  
  
“But even watered-down Dreamless Sleep should see you experiencing at least fewer dreams, less . . . intense dreams.” Charlie sighs, searching Xander’s eyes. “And you still don’t remember what it is you dream about?”  
  
Xander frowns, casting his mind over the past couple of hours. He remembers . . . absolutely nothing. Nothing comes to him except feelings of love and guilt . . . and a vague, nameless anxiety, as if he’s running out of time. . . .  
  
 _Well, of course, I’m running out of time! Jake’ll be ready to come out of the oven in six weeks! In six weeks, I’ll get to hold my little man. . . ._  
  
“Not a damn thing,” he says absently, tucking his head under Charlie’s chin. “Probably nothing but the usual: showed up naked and late for a trig test that I didn’t study for . . . something like that.”  
  
“Hmm.” Charlie kisses his crown and, after a few minutes of offering silent, but unnecessary comfort, escorts Xander to the Floo.  
  


*

  
  
Long after Xander’s asleep that night, Charlie’s still wide awake, frowning even as he holds his husband and child in his arms. For he knows that, ultimately, no matter how tightly he holds them, he can’t protect them. Can’t  _save_  them if their health goes downhill.  
  
In a way, Xander and Jake’s lives are out of his hands.  
  
It’s something Charlie fights to accept, at the same time as he know he never  _will_  accept it. As long as there is breath in his body, and in Xander’s, he will never accept that there’s  _nothing_  he can do to protect his family.  
  
Under his hand Jake suddenly starts kicking sluggishly. Charlie opens eyes he hadn’t been aware of closing only to blink at the mid-morning light shining in the window. He tucks his face in the curving hollow between Xander’s neck and shoulder, inhaling and holding his husband and child tighter once more.  
  
It has not escaped his notice—especially since he filched that dream book from Xander, who seems to have forgotten it completely—that the moment Xander’s sleep truly evens out at night, that Jakob’s kicking almost immediately ceases. And, in the morning, when Xander begins to wake up, to shift and take the deeper, less even breaths that signal waking, Jakob’s kicking starts again.  
  
And that in between these events, Xander sometimes talks in his sleep.  
  
Most of what he says, Charlie can’t quite make out, but the things that Xander has a tendency to _repeat_ , such as:  _Forbidden Forest_ ,  _Stay on the Path_  and  _I’ll remember_ , Charlie has learnt to interpret. Those, and especially:  _love you, little man_.  
  
The last one, anyway, is easy enough to figure out. The first two . . . not so much. And the third . . . well, that could refer to anything, couldn’t it? From Xander promising to remember some part of his dream, to promising to remember something forgotten from waking reality (and to whom, Charlie wonders)?  
  
But Charlie rather thinks, in conjunction with  _love you, little man_ , it rather means the former. That Xander’s struggling to remember what he dreams—or, as Charlie’s come to think of it, thanks to the dream book, what  _they_ , he and Jakob dream—upon waking. And that whatever it is, it’s important. Perhaps  _vitally_  important.  
  
Sighing again, Charlie kisses Xander’s skin and inhales. Xander’s scent has become the scent of home for him, of family, and of Charlie’s place in the world. Xander’s scent means that Charlie has finally found the place where he belongs, his home, as Xander’s husband and Jakob’s father. If he ever lost his home . . . Charlie doesn’t know what he’d do. . . .  
  
But soon, Xander’s stirring in his arms—largely due to the kicking under Charlie’s hand, probably—and making his usual whiny, unhappy noises at waking up before eight a.m. Only it’s well after ten.  
  
For all the sleep that he gets, it’s clearly not enough, something that’s been worrying Charlie and Medi-wizard Braden, though Xander has shown no ill-effects resulting from this. Yet.  
  
“My little man,” Xander breathes, still more than half-asleep, his hand coming up to cover Charlie’s as he snuggles back in Charlie’s arms. And Charlie suddenly has an idea—and but seconds, he knows, to put it into effect. Seconds before Xander’s conscious mind takes over and destroys what little remains of his dreams even now.  
  
“Love,” Charlie says as calmly and quietly as he can. “Who’s  _little man_?”  
  
Xander chuckles, though it’s more sleepy sigh than anything. “Jake.” Beat. “We’re going to the Forbidden Forest. To see unicorns.”  
  
“Er . . .  _how’s_  that?” Charlie can’t imagine a pregnant person, someone clearly not a virgin, ever clapping eyes on something like a  _unicorn_. “I mean . . . is that, uh—” and here Charlie makes an intuitive leap “—what the little man wants you to remember, love?”  
  
“Mm . . . follow the Path . . . me, Jake . . . and maybe Firenze. Hagrid has to talk to Firenze for me . . . ‘cuz Firenze knows where the unicorns live. . . .” Xander’s yawns, and stretches in Charlie’s arms, rolling over. His eyes squint open a little. “We have to—to—” Xander blinks, then blinks some more, shuddering once, hard—till he’s awake, more or less—and looks incredibly confused for a moment before grinning slowly. “Fuck, we have to get up!”  
  
Biting back another sigh—why Jake, or the Jake of Xander’s dreams is telling him he needs to see unicorns in the Forbidden Forest, Charlie doesn’t know. But he does know that there’s precious little likelihood that Xander would know that the two best guides through said Forest and to said unicorns are Firenze and Hagrid, people he’d have only read about in  _Hogwarts: A History_  or some other such book. Thus there’s something more at work here than mere _dreams_ —Charlie puts on a smile. “Oh? And why is that, Mr. Weasley?”  
  
Xander leans over to kiss Charlie good morning, his lips still slightly syrupy-sweet from the Dreamless Sleep, which is strong enough that after the kiss ends, Charlie’s yawning and blinking.  
  
Watered-down, indeed.  
  
“Because, Mr. Weasley, it’s Christmas Eve. Mine and Jakob’s first as part of the Weasley family.” Xander pulls Charlie’s hand back to his stomach. “See? Even Jakob’s already excited.”  
  
“Actually, I think that might just be hunger. . . .”  
  
“ _And_  excitement. I think he knows he’s going to get some really awesome presents. And so’s his Dad,” Xander hints broadly. Charlie’s smile becomes a grin.  
  
“Oh, really?” Charlie thinks briefly of the rocking chair Xander’s been hinting at wanting for months—the one Harry’s currently hiding for him at Grimmauld Place, and says nothing.  
  
“Yes, Papa, really.” Xander’s smile turns rather sultry. “Though Dad’s got a gift he wants to give Papa while they’re still alone. . . .”  
  
Charlie lets himself be pushed flat to the bed, moaning softly as Xander leaves a trail of teasing kisses down his body. “Mm, do tell.”  
  
And as absolutely divine as Xander’s gift for the gab is—especially  _this_  kind of gab—Charlie’s mind is still ticking away, still replaying what had been said before Xander was fully awake.  
  


*

  
  
Having woken up so chipper, Xander insists on going to help Mum with breakfast—rather brunch. Charlie, still laying abed, his body humming and singing from Xander’s patented To-the-Moon-and-Back blowjob, his brain just a white, static noise, can only absently warn Xander not to over-do it.  
  
“Yes, Mum,” Xander says, leaning down to kiss Charlie briefly, laughing a little when Charlie depens the kiss, chasing down the taste of himself.  
  
Then Xander’s throwing on his jeans and Charlie’s shirt from yesterday, tying back his hair, and passing the mirror with a dissatisfied glance.  
  
“God, I’m a fucking  _whale_!”  
  
“You’re beautiful.”  
  
“Much like a baleen whale is beautiful. . . .”  
  
“Love,” Charlie chastises, and the reflection of Xander ‘s smile, wry, meets his. “You’re always astonishingly lovely to me. Always have been, always will be.”  
  
“That’s the post-blowjob endorphins talking,” Xander says, but colors rather fetchingly, anyway. “Fuck. One thing I will  _not_  miss when Jake is born is the damn waterworks. That and the swollen ankles.”  
  
Charlie smiles, smitten, and smitten with the feeling. “Waterworks and ankles aside, you still glow.”  
  
“That’s from all the heat-energy I’m burning.” Xander snorts and turns to look at Charlie. In the morning light, he looks so beautiful . . . tired, but beautiful. “I’m like a small sun, these days. But at least that means I’m not a small planet.” He comes back to the bed to kiss Charlie again. “Try to get some more sleep. You’ve been working like crazy to get everything straightened up at the preserve for the end of the year. You’ve more than earned a rest. If you want, I can bring breakfast up to you?”  
  
“Nah . . . I’ll be down shortly. Just gotta retrieve some more of my brain cells, first,” Charlie says, darting up to kiss Xander again, deeply. When he’s done, Xander’s breathing hard, one hand cupping Charlie’s cheek, the other cupping Charlie’s renewed erection.  
  
“I can’t wait till we can fuck again,” Xander sighs yearningly, and Charlie covers Xander’s hands with his own. “I miss having you inside me so much already, and it’s only been a couple weeks.”  
  
“Only two more months, love.” Charlie turns his face to nuzzle Xander’s hand and kiss the palm. “Though, then I’ reckon we’ll be so busy and tired once Jakob’s born—”  
  
“ _Never_  too busy and tired for  _that_ ,” Xander swears starting up a sustained stroke. Charlie groans, laying down and pulling Xander with him. Xander laughs and they try to find a comfortable position in which to proceed.  
  
“I was  _gonna_  help Mum with brunch,” Xander says, his eyebrows quirking up. Charlie arranges him so he’s flat on his back, with Charlie leaning over him. “I got dressed and everything.”  
  
“You did, love. You certainly did.” Charlie leans down to kiss Xander’s neck, satisfied with the long, low groan this occasions. His own questing hand finds its way into Xander’s jeans, something it’s always been very good at. Xander’s hard, and doesn’t waste any time when it comes to getting harder. Charlie pushes his own hardened prick against Xander’s denim-clad thigh, the friction making him hiss. “Bloody  _hell_ , I  _want_  you.”  
  
“And I want you. So  _bad_.”  
  
Charlie kisses his way to Xander’s ear, where he takes a deep breath and gathers up his courage. “Think you’re up to, er, topping, this fine morning?”  
  
He can feel Xander’s surprise palpably. And when Xander turns his head so their gazes meet, Charlie’s smiling almost shyly. “Are . . . are you sure?”  
  
“Pretty sure.”  
  
“But—we haven’t since our honeymoon. I thought—” Now Xander’s the one to turn red, and look somewhat unhappy while doing so. “I thought I wasn’t any good at it, and that you just didn’t like it enough to wanna do it again—”  
  
“ _No_ , love, no—” Charlie kisses Xander tenderly. “You were wonderful—made me feel things I’ve _never_  felt before. I  _loved_  it. I love  _you_. I just . . . it’s not easy for me to ask . . . and  _I_  wasn’t sure _you_  enjoyed it enough to want to do it again, so that made it even more difficult to ask. . . .”  
  
“Oh, Charlie,” Xander murmurs, shivering. “I love  _everything_  we’ve done. Everything I do with you is bliss. And if you’ve been holding back because it wigs you to ask, then  _don’t_  ask, just—look me in the eye and tell me to fuck you, and I will. Believe me.” Xander chuckles throatily. “I will.”  
  
Charlie searches Xander’s eyes for a long moment, then nods, his gaze skittering away for a few seconds before coming back, as fearless as always. “Fuck me, Mr. Weasley.”  
  
Xander shivers again. “Brunch can  _so_  wait,” he breathes. Then he’s kissing Charlie hard as they both scramble to push his jeans back down.  
  


*

  
  
By the time Charlie and Xander make their way downstairs, hand in hand—Charlie still aching pleasantly from the thorough, unrelenting rogering he’d gotten for the better part of an hour—the sun is markedly  _up_ , and Mum has brunch in full-swing with the help of no less than six Weasley women and a gaggle of Weasley girls, who nonetheless cooingly subsume Xander into their ranks without hesitation as soon as he steps foot in the kitchen. Leaving Charlie to go join the Weasley men and young children in the livingroom to mill about, talk, read the paper or simply play (with a frisking and very excited Jason) respectively, until breakfast is done.  
  
Once in the livingroom, he spots Harry standing off to the left side of the mantle and watching the younger children play with Jason, drinking from a Styrofoam cup of what Charlie assumes to be coffee—and in fact  _is_ , since Charlie can smell his favorite bean from across any room (and Harry’s the one who got Charlie addicted to coffee in the first place, many years ago).  
  
“You’re looking like quite the proud, contented family man,” Harry says as Charlie approaches, and Charlie grins.  
  
“Yep. In less than two months, you’ll be an uncle again,” Charlie says, indeed, quite proudly and contentedly. Then his smile fades as he recalls just why he’d sought Harry out. “But I’ve actually got something to ask you . . . do you still . . . speak to Hagrid regularly?” he spits out quietly when Harry’s look urges him on, only to see Harry’s slight surprise at the question.  
  
“As regularly as I’m able, at any rate. I don’t get over to Hogwarts as much as I used to,” he admits guiltily, but with a smile. “But I just saw Hagrid a few weeks ago when I was out that way to give the usual rah-rah,  _The Department of Magical Law Enforcement Wants YOU!_  pep talk to this crop of seventh years. Anyway, why do you ask?”  
  
“Hmm.” Charlie decides to tread very carefully, indeed. He feels odd enough poking this far into Xander’s dreams without Xander’s knowledge, let alone getting an auror, even if that auror is Harry, involved. “Just, er, wondering if Hagrid remembers me—if I might go talk with him and catch up.”  
  
“Are you joking?” Harry chuckles a little as Jason wrests a small squeaking ball from George and Angelina’s youngest, baby Ella, who falls back on her bum with a surprised squawk. The other kids laugh. “You’re the bloke who took care of Norbert when Hagrid couldn’t. Norbert’s  _step-mummy_ , as it were. You’re also one of the rare few of his brood that turned out a dragon-keeper.”  
  
“Well, me and Gav, among others, yes,” Charlie says, only for Harry to sigh and shake his head. Lily and Gav have been seeing each other for over two months, and quite seriously on both their parts. Harry still clearly doesn’t know what to make of his normally feckless daughter’s sudden attachment to Gavin McTavish. Nor does he really know what to make of Gavin, who treats Lily like she’s treasure, but also painfully idolizes Harry to the point that Charlie’s certain Gavin has yet to actually manage more than one complete sentence in Harry’s presence.  
  
“Well, I think Hagrid would love a visit from you—and Xander. Those two’d get along splendidly. I’d pay to be a fly on the wall at that first meeting, though. The conversation alone would be quite . . . interesting, I’m sure,” Harry finishes with another chuckle.  
  
Charlie laughs, and is wondering if he dare even lightly broach the subject of Firenze with Harry, or simply leave things be till he and Xander can talk with Hagrid, when Mum comes out to announce that brunch is ready.  
  
He takes that as a sign that before he talks to anyone else about any _thing_  else regarding Xander’s dreams, he first speak with Xander.  
  
After Christmas, then . . . and hopefully that’s not too long a wait.  
  


*

  
  
After brunch has settled, every adult who is of a mind gathers together for a game of pick-up Quidditch, begging Harry and Charlie to play Seekers for the opposing teams. Both beg off, pleading age and lack of practice as excuses, but eventually the family wins Harry over, if not Charlie.  
  
“It’ll probably be fun. Well, a little nerve-wracking, at least for me, watching my husband defy the law of gravity,” Xander says, his breath puffing out white in the crisp, winter air. Then he leans in to kiss Charlie. He tastes of hot chocolate and candy canes. “But the up-shot is, I get to watch  _my husband_  kick  _Harry Potter’s_  ass at Quidditch. And how cool is that?”  
  
Charlie chuckles regretfully. “You have a lot of faith in an old man, Xand.”  
  
“In  _my_  old man. And always.” Xander grins and Charlie kisses him lingeringly. “Now, go grab a broom and show these amateurs how Quidditch is  _really_  played.”  
  
“But—”  
  
“No buts! Up!” Xander squeezes Charlie tight one last time with a quick peck on the cheek. “Good luck!”  
  
And Charlie, who’d been quite prepared to keep turning down the demands on his talent and time, finds himself shuffling over to the knot of Weasleys forming up for the match.  
  
“Well, apparently my husband wants to see me wipe the floor with you,” Charlie says blithely to Harry, who, after a moment of surprise and a glance in Xander’s direction, gets that contemplative look that means he’s feeling quite competitive.  
  
“Aw, that’s a shame, mate. I  _do_  so hate to see poor Xander disappointed this close to Christmas,” Harry says faux-apologetically, grinning, and tossing Charlie an old Firebolt Series 7—probably Jamie’s old one—and grabbing a Nimbus, some version or other, by the lines, from George.  
  
Hoops are transfigured, balls gathered. Places are taken in the air. Charlie looks down and can immediately spot Xander, eyes on him, mouth agape. Xander’s never seen him fly before, and Charlie only hopes he remembers enough of his old moves to impress his clearly already impressed husband.  
  
A whistle is blown and the battle is enjoined. Percy, acting as referee, tosses the quaffle up in the air.  
  
An anticipatory cheer goes up from the ranks of the spectators, and the players  _move_.  
  


*

  
  
“That was  _brilliant_ , mate! So were you!”  
  
“No,  _you_  were brilliant! One of the best damned Wronskis I’ve ever seen!”  
  
“Dunno how I even managed it—out of practice as I am. Dunno how  _I_  even caught the damned snitch, fast as  _you_  are! Time hasn’t slowed you down at all!”  
  
“Nor you!”  
  
Laughing and clapping each other on the back Charlie and Harry’s mutual admiration society makes it back toward the waiting crowd of watching Weasleys. To their waiting spouses: Ginny, who’d chosen to sit this game out (claiming she played enough Quidditch for work, she liked not having to play at home) and Xander who’s—pink-cheeked and glowing—wearing a look of wonderment that makes Charlie feel about ten thousand feet tall.  
  
“You are . . . words have failed me, Charlie Weasley.  _Amazingly cool_  doesn’t seem to cut it.” Xander approaches him, arms wide for a hug. Charlie holds up a hand warningly as Harry lets go of him to—awkwardly, it seems even to Charlie—hug his wife.  
  
“Sorry, love, but I’m rather sweaty, so you might—”  
  
Charlie doesn’t even get the rest of his warning out as Xander pulls him into a long, tight embrace, complete with a long, passionate kiss. This time, he tastes like sherbert lemons, probably gifted to him by Rory, Ron and Hermione’s youngest. Tricksy, the boy may be, but he’s never been anything other than generous. And he’s taken quite the shine to “Uncle Zander,” too, if he’s even sharing his precious sherbert lemons.  
  
The kiss lasts till cheers and laughter and sporadic applause go up. Xander breaks the kiss, laughing, too. Jason is running around their feet, barking his high, happy bark.  
  
“Is it inappropriate that I want you to ride me like you rode that broom?” Xander whispers, and Charlie shivers from more than just cold air on his damp skin.  
  
“Completely. About as inappropriate as me wanting another To-the-Moon-and-Back before Mum dishes up supper,” Charlie murmurs back, gazing quite heatedly into his husband’s eyes. The look he gets back says that that will most certainly be arranged, if Xander has to move Heaven and Earth to do it.  
  
“It’s the very least the game-winning Seeker deserves.”  
  
Charlie grins and pulls Xander into another kiss, this one brief, but no less of a sizzler. “Well, then, in that case I’m  _especially_  glad Harry didn’t win! Oi!” Charlie laughs helplessly despite the fact that Xander has just kicked him none-too-gently in the shin.  
  


*

  
  
Charlie’s head thunks back against their bedroom door with a loud knock when he comes, lip bitten to stifle a loud groan—they’d forgotten to soundproof the bedroom in their haste . . . barely even gotten his jeans down all the way before Xander was on his knees with a soft grunt and nuzzling Charlie’s hard, already red cock.  
  
The blowjob that’d followed hadn’t been marathon, Charlie running too hot and Xander being far, far too practiced, but it’d been mighty fine, indeed. Watching himself slide past Xander’s lips, over Xander’s talented tongue, and down Xander’s oh, so willing throat is one of Charlie’s favorite sights. Ironically, nothing gets him off faster than watching himself being got off.  
  
The only sight better is the look on Xander’s face when he comes while sucking Charlie off . . . the soft hitch of his humming around Charlie, which turns into a yearning moan around Charlie’s cock, the hectic flush of his face and throat, the way his eyes flutter shut, dark lashes fanning out against cheeks that’ve finally lost the last of their California tan. . . .  
  
Basically there isn’t a single sight during this act that isn’t bloody fantastic, and just remembering them now, even moments after coming, makes Charlie want to come all over again.  
  
But instead, he kneels, pulling Xander into his arms and looking into his eyes.  
  
“Oi, gorgeous,” he says softly, and Xander smiles.  
  
“Hey, yourself, handsome.”  
  
They kiss gently, Charlie placing one hand on Xander’s stomach. Jakob’s kicking is sluggish and sleepy. Token kicking, at best.  
  
“He’s just like his dad,” Xander yawns, breaking the kiss and laughing a little. “Ready to take a nap after a freight train of an orgasm.”  
  
Charlie grins and cleans them with a word. Then he’s getting to his feet and helping Xander to his. Xander goes with a few winces, but no complaints, going straight into Charlie’s arms.  
  
“If you really need that nap, love—” Charlie begins as Xander zips and buttons them both.  
  
“I was just kidding, Charlie. Don’t worry. I’m still in fightin’ trim. There’s supper to do battle with, after all.” Xander snorts. “I think I’ll come out the champeen, once more.”  
  
“I could bring a couple of plates up here and we could eat in private. . . .”  
  
“Nope. I wanna experience a traditional Weasley Christmas. Or any Christmas that doesn’t involve camping out in my backyard, slaying monsters, or living hand to mouth and while smuggling teenage super-girls out of Africa, and boy were my Christmases kinda sad before I met you,” Xander muses, a little melancholy, a little regretful. Charlie kisses his forehead and hugs him tight.  
  
“I love you,” he whispers into Xander’s hair. “I want to make all your Christmases happy ones from now on.”  
  
“They’ll be happy as long as I have you and Jake.”  
  
Charlie frowns, his hand sweeping up and down Xander’s back as he remembers this morning. He wonders how he’s to broach the subject with Xander without, as Xander would say, “seriously wigging him out.”  
  
But he senses that he has to. And very soon. After Christmas, yes, but certainly before the New Year.  
  
Shivering once more, Charlie squeezes Xander tight. “I love you,” he says again. “Both you and Jake. More than anything.”  
  
“Ditto, dragon-tamer.” Xander’s hug in return is just as tight.  
  
Shortly thereafter, without another word, they make their way back downstairs.  
  


*

  
  
They arrive in plenty of time for Xander to be recruited into helping Mum and a few others with the rest of the supper preparations, and Charlie just in time to see Lily, Gavin, and Mr. McTavish arrive via Floo.  
  
Poor Gav seems to be gobstuck to be surrounded by so many Weasleys—a family out of legend, in his awed mind. Mr. McTavish, however, simply seems a bit uncomfortable in his formal Muggle attire.  
  
(Gavin is—and he makes no secret of this—a half-blood: Scottish Muggle on his father’s side, Italian witch on his late mother’s. She’d been markedly older than Gavin’s father when the pair met. After a whirlwind courtship and marriage, Gavin’s mother had turned up pregnant—despite supposedly being incurably barren. Unfortunately, she’d died giving birth to Gavin. But not before making certain her husband knew exactly what to expect should their child show a talent for magic. And show a talent their child had, well before receiving his Hogwarts letter.)  
  
Mr. McTavish and Charlie shake hands warmly, with mutual respect, as do Mr. McTavish and Harry—though with the added and mutual bewilderment of men whose children have decided to keep company exclusively. There’s a bit of awkwardness between Mr. McTavish and Ginny, but there seems to be awkwardness between Ginny and practically everyone, lately, as if Charlie’s little sister has lost the knack of being with family or anyone that isn’t a bunch of old Quidditch hands.  
  
Then the McTavishes and Lily are being swallowed by the rest of the Weasleys and Potters, hands being shaken and cheeks kissed. Even Mum and the others take a break from preparing supper to come out and say  _hello_.  
  
Mr. McTavish’s blue-blue eyes nearly fall out of their sockets when he sees Xander, who blushes.  
  
“I know, I look different,” he quips, one hand going to his stomach automatically. “I’ve let my hair grow out. It takes people a bit to get used to, but—”  
  
“You’re looking healthier and happier than last I saw, young man,” Mr. McTavish—who’d begun asking folk to call him  _John_ —says, holding out his own hand for shaking. When Xander takes it, John pulls him into a careful embrace for a few moments. “Gavin tells me you’re due soon—a baby boy?”  
  
“Yep. Jakob Arthur.” Xander’s smile is watery in that way that means he’s trying not to get teary-eyed. “We’re gonna induce birth in about six weeks, if all goes according to plan.”  
  
“Merlin’s blessing on you that it does,” John says, smiling. “And my brightest hopes and well-wishes for you and Charles, and for the lad.”  
  
”Oh!” Xander says, wiping at his eyes. “Thank you, I—will you excuse me? I’m gonna go be an emotional wreck in the relative privacy of the back hallway.”  
  
Then he’s hurrying out of the room. Charlie and John share a look and a commiserating smile then Charlie’s going after Xander.  
  
He catches up to his husband halfway up the stairs, no doubt on the way to their room. He’s not moving very quickly—at this late date, he gets winded easily, and sometimes dizzy (though Charlie’s not supposed to know about that) if he goes upstairs too quickly.  
  
“Everyone’s just being so nice!” Xander exclaims when Charlie puts a hand at the small of his back. “I’m having a niceness overload! I’m so happy that I can’t stop going all teary-eyed about it! Which in turn makes me want to cry. Then I start crying more because I can’t  _stop_  crying. . . !”  
  
“Oh, Xand,” Charlie says soothingly, laughing a little.  
  
“Charlie—this isn’t funny! I don’t want everyone to think I’m crying because I’m  _un_ happy!” Xander turns at the top of the stairs, his face wet and his eyes slightly swollen. He wipes at them again, sniffling, and sits carefully. “It’s such a catch-22.”  
  
“A what?”  
  
Xander snorts and rolls his eyes. “I’m crying because I can’t stop crying because I can’t stop crying . . . to infinity. Sorta, but not quite an example of a catch-22.” He laughs through his tears, sighing when Charlie joins him at the top step, sitting next to him. He slings an arm around Xander, who lays his head on Charlie’s shoulder.  
  
“Do you still love me despite the fact that I’ve apparently become a complete and raging basketcase?”  
  
“Yep.”  
  
Xander snorts again, pulling Charlie’s hand to his stomach. Jakob’s got a real game of footie going on in there. “That’s a wise, diplomatic answer of the kind I’ve come to expect from you, babe.”  
  
Charlie laughs again, and after a few seconds, Xander joins him. A few minutes after that, Jason, who’d been kept busy all morning and for the afternoon thus far playing with Rory and his cousins, comes to join them, laying at their feet with a tuckered out sigh.  
  
“They runnin’ ya ragged, bark-machine?”  
  
Jason whines once in answer to Xander’s question, and settles his head between his paws with a huff.  
  
And for a while, the four of them just sit and listen to the holiday sounds coming from the livingroom and kitchen.  
  
“Best. Christmas. Ever,” Xander can be heard to sigh happily, and Charlie—mysteries of Xander’s dreams gone, though not far . . . Jakob safe and healthy under their linked hands—couldn’t agree more.


	27. The Home-Stretch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Xander and Charlie are in the home-stretch . . . of course, that’s when the problems start.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes/Warnings: Canon compliant for both ‘verses. M-Preg. Set post-Chosen by about eleven years, and post DH/e by ten years (I fiddled with timelines a bit). Spoilers for BtVS “Chosen” and DH/e.  
> Disclaimer: Maybe mine . . . but probably not.

“But, baby, I’m  _fine_ ,” Xander whines between two jaw-cracking yawns, covering his mouth with one hand, the other doing its best to push him upright even as Charlie gently, but firmly pushes him back down to their bed.  
  
“Yes, you certainly sound fine. Fourteen hours of sleep and you’re still yawning, love.” Charlie sighs worriedly. “I may not be a Medi-wizard, but that doesn’t equal fine in my brain.”  
  
Xander yawns again, for a third, not unprecedented time, his eyes slipping shut for a few seconds before flying back open: spring grass-green and sable brown, both in seas of irritated, rubbed-raw red, with pinprick pupils.  
  
“Charlie, really, I’m just a little sleepy, is all. One of the main perks of being pregnant. And yeah, maybe I overdid it a bit at work over the past couple weeks, but I promise you, two days of practically being confined to our bedroom—with no sexy-times, I might add—and I’m—”  
  
“Fine?”  
  
Now, Xander sighs, his weariness replaced by irritation. “Look, I  _said_  I’m fine and I meant it, Charlie, now will you back the fuck  _off_  and let me get ready for work?”  
  
“I don’t think I will,” Charlie says quietly, and Xander’s mouth drops open. “I’m not speaking as your husband now, but as your supervisor: your due date is literally twelve days away, Mr. Weasley.  _Twelve days_. You’re officially on paternity leave till  _at least_  three months after the baby is born.”  
  
For a few moments, all Xander does is blink and splutter.   
  
“You—you can’t just  _do_  that!”  
  
“Actually, I can. And I just did,” Charlie says resolutely, and Xander splutters some more.  
  
“You—you’re a—a despot and an asshole!”  
  
Charlie snorts. “I’ve been called worse by my employees for doing less, I’m sure. Now,” he attempts to cup Xander’s face in his hand and Xander turns away, muttering  _as if!_  “Lay back down and I’ll bring you breakfast in bed.”  
  
“I don’t want you to bring me anything— _fuck off_.”  
  
Then with more strength than Charlie would’ve expected, considering how winded and tired is from simply climbing the stairs, Xander shoves Charlie away from him. Charlie actually slides off their bed, landing on his arse, and by the time he’s got over his surprise enough to get  _up_ , Xander’s already out of bed on unsteady legs. His so-called “sweatpants” are, Charlie notices absently, all-over dusty and torn at the knees, as if Xander’s spent the night hiking and climbing trees or something, and his socks are in even worse condition.  
  
 _That’s odd,_  he thinks. But then he’s on his feet and inserting himself quickly between Xander and the door, only to get the frostiest look he’s ever seen in those normally warm, merry eyes. But he doesn’t let that stop him. Not when it’s Xander and Jakob’s health he’s out to protect.  
  
“Oh, no, you don’t.” Charlie crosses his arms like the bloke doing guard-duty outside a trendy Muggle club, and Xander’s eyes narrow angrily, thawing from cold disbelief to hot anger. “Back into bed.”  
  
“Get outta my way, Charlie.”  
  
“No.”  
  
“ _Charlie_ —”  
  
“Either make me get out of the way, or get back into bed, Xander,” Charlie snaps, serving Xander’s glare right back at him, this time bracing himself for the show of desperate strength he gets when Xander shoves him again. Not away from the door, but against it.  _Hard_. Then again. And a third time. Each time is a little less hard than the last. But Charlie’s expecting a fourth shove when Xander simply hits Charlie’s shoulders hard enough to sting, but not hard enough to rock Charlie back against the door again.  
  
Xander’s glare, meanwhile, has been fading, turning to hastily blinked-back tears of frustration, confusion, then, finally, weary— _very_  weary—resignation. At last, his hands slide down Charlie’s chest and away. He  _turns_  away, wrapping his arms about himself, his shoulders hunched.  
  
“Love,” Charlie begins gently, his own annoyance fading as he reaches out, but doesn’t quite touch Xander at the last moment. As if sensing that, Xander flinches away and takes a few steps toward the window.  
  
“Leave me alone, Charlie, just . . . leave me alone. Go to work, if you’re going. I’ll see you when you get home,” he says in a flat, emotionless voice, stepping carefully toward the heavy cherrywood rocking chair Charlie had gotten him for Christmas. The one Xander had been wanting and hinting about for nearly five months. The one that’d been received with no small thanks on Xander’s part . . .  _had that just been three weeks ago?_  Charlie wonders, not sure whether to approach Xander, who’s now sitting gingerly in the chair with a sigh. It’s turned to face the window, and Xander doesn’t change that angle, instead looking out the window, his face gone stoic and mask-like.  
  
“Xand . . . I know you’re upset with me now—”  
  
“I’m not upset, Charlie.” Same flat voice, soft and utterly lacking inflection.  _Rock-rock-rock_ , goes the chair, slightest creaking as it gently impacts the floorboards.  
  
“This is for your own good . . . even Medi-wizard Braden wants you to get more rest. And you can’t do that if you’re spending ten hours a day talking to bloody dragons,” Charlie says—pleads, practically, crossing the room to kneel at Xander’s feet. “It’s wearing on you, physically and magically . . . I just want you to be healthy. You  _and_  our son.”  
  
“I understand that, Charlie.”  
  
And maybe Xander does. But he still won’t look at Charlie, who sighs, and lays his head on Xander’s bare, dusty knees. “But you’re still angry.”  
  
“I’m not angry.”  
  
“Then what  _are_  you?” Charlie demands, suddenly feeling as helpless as Xander had no doubt felt just a few minutes ago. All Charlie knows is that, despite the happiness of the days leading up to Christmas, and Christmas itself, the three weeks after, have increasingly seen Xander toss and turn while sleeping, and be manic or irritable, and apathetic at turns while awake. The former eventually leading Xander to cry himself to another fruitless sleep, the latter eventually leading Xander to the same.  
  
Charlie looks into at Xander’s stone-face and reaches up to turn it toward his own. Xander doesn’t resist him. Merely gazes at him with those undreadable, absent eyes. As if he’s dismissed Charlie almost completely from the sphere of his attention.  
  
“I’m fine,” Xander says, and smiles, just as absent as his gaze, before looking back out the window. “I’m fine. Have a good day.”  
  
Charlie searches Xander’s face and sighs, nodding. “I’ll try. It won’t be the same without you.”  
  
Silence.  
  
Charlie cups Xander’s face in his own, turns it toward him and kisses Xander chastely, but with passion. The kiss is returned perfunctorily. But it  _is_  returned.  
  
Then Charlie’s leaning down to kiss Xander’s t-shirt-covered stomach, as he does at least several times per day. He lingers and smiles when Jake starts kicking.  
  
 _Our son,_  Charlie thinks, his hand coming up to follow the flurry of kicks.  _Our little man._  
  
It’s the first time Charlie’s thought of Jake that way, and it reminds him of the promise he’d made to himself and to an unknowing Xander: that he’d broach the subject of Xander’s dreams . . . dreams that are telling him to find unicorns in the Forbidden Forest, for some reason, and with the help of none other than Fireneze, whom Xander shouldn’t even know exists. . . .   
  
Charlie remembers this, looks up into Xander’s blank face, and sighs again.  
  
 _Perhaps it can wait another few days, after all_ , he tells himself doubtfully, laying his head on Xander’s knee once more, worry and discontent tearing at the last of his Yuletide cheer. And his guilt; he's been putting off talking to Xander about the dreams for weeks. _Or at least till we’ve seen Medi-wizard Braden again, which we’re doing before Wednesday, if I have to drag Xander kicking and scream—_  
  
Just then, Xander’s hand settles lightly on Charlie’s head and softly, almost tenderly, strokes his hair. Charlie closes his eyes on tears that want to escape, and his thoughts scatter, refusing to be marshaled until, with a final kiss to Xander’s forehead, he leaves their bedroom.  
  
And by then, his mind is already on the refuge—the escape—that has always been work and his dragons.  
  


*

  
  
When Charlie gets home late that evening, he expects to find Xander asleep, tossing and turning and muttering, as he has been for the past few nights. What he gets instead is a Xander waiting up for him in the livingroom, reading the  _Evening Prophet_  and wearing Charlie’s favorite robe on him—the sable and green one that matches his eyes.  
  
And  _nothing else_ , if Xander’s shoeless, sockless state is anything to go by. One of Xander’s many wordless cues that so-called “sexy-times” are imminent.  
  
“What’s all this?” Comes tumbling from Charlie’s lips before he can think to say otherwise.  
  
Xander smiles wanly when Charlie steps out of the fireplace and puts the paper down, standing up and crossing the room to greet him with kisses that tease and tantalize.  
  
“I missed you,” he breathes between kisses, his arms winding around Charlie’s neck. Charlie, surprised and a little wary, holds Xander tentatively about the waist.  
  
“Mm . . . missed you, too,” he replies, and Xander’s kisses wend their teasing way to Charlie’s ear where they turn into sharp, but playful nips of Charlie’s ear lobe.  
  
“Have you eaten?” Cool breath, heated tone, throw-away words.  
  
But Charlie shivers. He had eaten. “Romanian take-away. Gav’s treat.”  
  
Xander chuckles and nibbles on Charlie’s ear till Charlie’s breathing picks up. “Sounds ab-fab, hon. That means you’re more than ready for  _dessert_. . . .”  
  
And despite the emphasis on  _dessert_ , Charlie’s still wary after this morning, and leans back to look his husband in the eyes. Xander’s face is tired, but sincere in its sultriness. That stoic, mask-like quality is gone.  
  
Charlie reaches up and brushes Xander’s cheek with his fingertips, still somewhat surprised when Xander leans happily into his touch. Dark-light eyes meet Charlie’s own, brimming with love and longing and happiness.  
  
“C’mon, babe, let’s go soundproof our bedroom, then give that spell a run for its money,” he says, waggling his eyebrows in a fairly ridiculous way that always makes Charlie smile. This time is no different.  
  
Pulling Xander close and kissing him hard, Charlie moans when Xander’s hands each find tasks: one cupping his face tenderly, the other unzipping his fly and cupping his bollocks rather less so.  
  
“Oh, Xand,” Charlie breathes, and Xander leans in to nuzzle his neck. “Merlin, but I’ve missed you, too!”  
  
“I know.” Those hands tremor minutely, and Xander’s looking into his eyes once more, as somber as his own have ever been. “We’ve barely even kissed over the past few weeks—I’m sorry, I—”  
  
“That’s not what I meant by missing you, Xander . . . or at least not the only thing.”  
  
“I know, I know,” Xander sighs as Charlie takes his lips in another kiss. “I’m so sorry, baby. So sorry. It’s just—I’m so  _tired_. And  _all the time_. . . .”  
  
“I know, love, I know. It’s alright. I’m here for you no matter what.”  
  
Xander’s breath hitches on what’s almost but not quite a sob. “Sometimes I’m so tired I can barely think, barely . . .  _feel_  anything. And sometimes I’m just angry that I don’t have the energy I used to have. Not even remotely.” Tears leak out of Xander’s closed eyes and he opens them, looking up into Charlie’s. “I feel like I’m on the verge of collapsing all the time, and I’m always about two seconds away from simply stopping in the middle of whatever I’m doing—just stopping, sitting down on the floor, and crying till I pass out.  
  
“Charlie . . . I’m  _so tired_.” Shaking now, Xander lays his forehead on Charlie’s shoulder with a mirthless laugh. “I’m afraid one of these days I’ll just . . . fall asleep, never to wake up again.”  
  
“Xand—”  
  
“Is that even possible?” Xander leans back, his panicked eyes meeting Charlie’s. “Please tell me that’s not possible. Even if it is, please, lie to me.”  
  
Searching Xander’s eyes, Charlie dredges up a smile and makes a mental note to fire-call Medi-wizard Braden first thing in the morning. “Even if it is, it won’t happen to  _you_. We’re going to see the Medi-wizard tomorrow and he’s going to figure out why you’re feeling so poorly, and fix you up in a trice,” he promises, and that, too, may be a lie. A different one than the one he’d been trying to avoid, but one that’ll actually let him look at himself in the mirror in the morning.  
  
And even if it doesn’t, Xander’s smile, that bright gorgeous  _smile_ , is so worth it.  
  
“You’re the best husband I’ve ever had,” Xander says, pecking Charlie’s lips. “Way better than all those others.”  
  
“Well, I try my best,” Charlie responds, scooping Xander up in his arms and carrying him toward the stairs. Xander hangs on tight, giggling a little, almost desperately.  
  
“God, am I glad you’re such a Rhett Butler-type. I dunno how I was gonna make it up these stairs, otherwise . . . I dunno how I even got  _down_  them, but going back up. . . ?”  
  
“It’s alright, love. We’ll put you to bed, and you can catch up on rest,” Charlie murmurs, kissing Xander’s crown. When he gets to their bedroom door he nudges it open and carries Xander in.  
  
“ _Illuminatus,_ ” he says softly, and the two lamps in the room light with a gentle yellow glow. On their bed, Jason snores lightly, twitching in a way that means he’s about to wake up. Charlie smiles a little. “Oi, bark-machine! Am-scray!” And Jason wakes, barks once, and hops off the bed. Tail wagging, he darts out the door and likely to the top of the stairs, where he sits guard every night.  
  
“I’m totally rubbing off on you,” Xander says, giggling again as Charlie kicks their door shut. “Or I could be. Just say the word.”  
  
Laying Xander on their bed, Charlie sits next to him just in time for a kiss that carries on far longer than Charlie means it to. “Xander . . . I know you’re tired—bloody  _exhausted_ —”  
  
“Not too exhausted for  _this_ ,” Xander whispers, his hand snaking its way back into Charlie’s jeans. “Been needing this for weeks.”  
  
“Merlin help me, but so have I,” Charlie admits, letting Xander pull him down on top of him. He braces himself on his arms and straddles Xander’s legs. They kiss for long minutes, and during and in between kisses, remove Charlie’s clothing and unbutton Xander’s robe (he  _is_  wearing it the old-fashioned way . . . nothing underneath), till they’re finally skin to skin. Xander runs his hands up Charlie’s chest, tugging peremptorily on chest hair till Charlie gets the picture and settles more fully—though not completely—on top of him. They look into each other’s eyes, smiling, and finally Charlie leans down to press a lingering kiss on Xander’s already kiss-swollen mouth.  
  
“You’re so beautiful, so wonderful. And I love you more than I’ll ever be able to properly express,” he murmurs, and Xander takes them both in the same hand, gasping, as Charlie does, at the doubled contact. His eyes widen, lashes fluttering.  
  
“And you’re . . . more and better than I’ll ever deserve. But I’ll never stop trying to be worthy,” he breathes, arching up against Charlie, his hard prick sliding damply in his grip and against Charlie’s. Then he’s groaning, long and loud, when Charlie’s larger hand closes around his own, squeezing and adding his strength to Xander’s.  
  
Then they’re kissing once more, slow and long, till Xander gasps and stiffens, coming hard on his stomach and Charlie’s. Tears once more leak out from behind his closed eyelids, but for a different reason. Charlie kisses them away even as Xander’s breathing—panting—evens out a little, and his hand starts moving on their pricks again, tight and no-nonsense, till Charlie, biting out an  _oh, fuck!_  comes, too, the world becoming a negative of itself before briefly blotting out altogether.  
  
“Love, love, love,” he hisses as he comes back to reality, to Xander’s thumb smearing come across the tip of his prick and still, alternately, stroking him off. Urging Charlie on with delightfully filthy words of encouragement.  
  
 _Can’t come again, love . . . it’s been such a long day and we’re both tired,_  Charlie means to say, but then Xander’s shamelessly working his still half-hard prick, finding that one spot below the head that sends Charlie’s already compromised brain to what Xander calls The Place of Completely-Not-Working. His face is sexily smug as he stares up into Charlie’s eyes.  
  
“I dunno about you, babe, but I’m literally counting down the minutes till you can fuck me again. ‘Til I can feel you pushing this monster into me. And after two months of not being fucked, I’m gonna be so tight around you again—you’re gonna have to break me open with  _this_.” Extra-slow stroke, but extra-tight, too. “ _Wide. Open._ ” Xander does some hissing himself, though not in Parseltongue. “Gonna feel  _so_  good.” His hand tightens almost, but not quite, to the point of being no longer pleasurable. To the point that Charlie’s mind tricks him into believing, if only for a few moments, that he’s actually inside Xander’s tight, twitchy-fluttery heat, driving relentlessly inward to touch the core of him.  
  
And those few moments are all it takes for Charlie grit out Xander’s name before groaning and spilling over Xander’s slippery, possessive grip, the pleasure bordering pain for a short eternity, before letting him go from its iron-clad grasp.  
  
Then he’s collapsing, with just enough presence of mind to not do so on his pregnant husband. Still panting, he rolls onto his back, pulling a very willing Xander into his arms. For a while, they simply lay there, breathing and basking, then kissing and touching whatever parts of each other they can easily reach.  
  
“That will  _never_  cease to be my favorite superpower,” Xander finally muses, sleepily petting Charlie’s sticky, damp stomach. Charlie knows one or the other of them should  _Scourgify_  them, but he can’t be arsed to move just yet. As Xander would say, the afterglow is far too  _epic_  for that.  
  
“Mm . . . and what superpower is  _that_ , love?”  
  
“The power to, even at thirty-one weeks pregnant, make my husband come twice in a row.” Xander sighs and kisses Charlie’s jaw. “Best superpower  _ever_.”  
  
“Won’t catch  _me_  disagreein’,” Charlie chuckles, squeezing Xander close. “I love you.”  
  
“And I love you.” Xander starts giggling again when Charlie pulls his hand up to his face to kiss it then lick it clean, one finger at a time.  
  


*

  
  
Charlie finishes his fire-call to Charlene Malcolm and the last of his morning coffee, and jogs upstairs to wake Xander.  
  
It’s nearly ten in the morning, and they have an appointment with Medi-wizard Braden in two hours and fifteen minutes. It takes less than five minutes, all told, to get to Braden’s office and fill out the requisite paperwork. But it’ll take at least an hour get Xander properly awake. Maybe longer. Even after twelve-plus hours of sleep and a full day of sleeping before that.  
  
One of the reasons Charlie’d been so keen to make an appointment with Braden as soon as possible, rather than wait for their next scheduled one. And after telling Braden how much worse Xander’s tiredness had gotten since they last had an appointment, the Medi-wizard had insisted they come in as soon as possible.  
  
But despite that—despite  _everything_ —for the first time in days, Charlie feels optimistic. Not only had Xander not argued with Charlie last night, when Charlie’d insisted on making the appointment first thing, but Xander had actually seemed to think it a good idea.  
  
“You take such good care of me,” he’d murmured, kissing Charlie tenderly, and Charlie, so prepared for a fight, had been totally disarmed, completely floored. He’d held Xander close and kissed him back hard, yearningly, desperately.  
  
“I’ll  _always_  take care of you, Xand. Because I’ll always love you,” he’d promised fervently, and kissed him again. Kissed him until Xander was obviously falling asleep in his arms. . . .  
  
Now, Charlie sits on their bed and leans over to kiss the back of Xander’s head with a resounding  _smack_. “Love, wake up. It’s time for breakfast, and almost time to go see Medi-wizard Braden.”  
  
Normally, Xander’s response would be either a grumble or a whine, or both. But this morning, however, Charlie got no response, whatsoever.  
  
Rolling his eyes fondly, he fully acknowledges to himself that this morning might see Xander taking even longer to wake up, after their . . . bit of fun the previous night.  
  
“C’mon, love, up and at ‘em. Mum’s promised she’d make your favorite breakfast and there’re a few chocolate chocolate chip biscuits leftover from last night with your name on them. And maybe there’ll be time for a little canoodling, if you’re up for it . . . and if we don’t dither over breakfast. . . .” Charlie rolls Xander over onto his back, one hand settling on Xander’s stomach, as usual, expecting a flurry of tiny kicks, also as usual.  
  
Jake, however, is  _not_  kicking, and that, after three months of him kicking Xander awake every morning, is . . . instantly worrying.  
  
But not as worrying, however, as the fact that, unless Charlie’s imagining things, Xander’s pale, naked body—especially the parts of it that should be rising and falling with his breath—is as still and limp as a deflated balloon.  
  


*

  
  
“Mr. Weasley?”  
  
Charlie looks up from his contemplation of the white linoleum floor of the emergency room at St. Mungo’s, into a sympathetically smiling nurse’s eyes. His own eyes feel gritty and dry. “Yes,” he croaks out, standing up. Mum stands with him, holding his arm as if to lend him strength. But Charlie feels neither less nor more strong than usual. In fact, he doesn’t feel much of anything at all. As if he’s in some sort of odd stasis.  
  
“How are they?” Mum asks, one hand coming up to cover her mouth. The nurse’s smile grows, if anything, even more sympathetic.  
  
“You and Mr. Weasley can see Mr. Weasley, now. Medi-wizard Braden is performing a few final stabilizing spells, but he’ll be able to tell you more about his condition than I can. If you’ll follow me this way.”  
  
With a tug on Charlie’s arm, Mum follows the nurse, tugging her second eldest son like a barge gone adrift.  
  


*

  
  
Xander looks pale, small, and unwell, surrounded by so much clinical white, covers pulled up under his arms.  
  
He looks  _lovely_  . . . so fragile . . . but so lovely.  
  
And from the moment he steps into Xander’s room—private—Charlie has eyes for nothing and no one else but his unconscious husband. Xander’s breathing is so slow and light that, just like this morning, Charlie can’t even tell that he  _is_  breathing, for sure. He immediately appropriates the chair next to the bed and takes Xander’s cool hand, kissing it and pressing it to his cheek. The pulse at Xander’s wrist is glacially slow . . . but there.  
  
“Love,” Charlie whispers as that protective stasis cracks, and a thousand emotions—worry, anger, and fear the chiefest among them—well out of him, and threaten to overwhelm him completely. “Oh, love.”  
  
Mum’s hand settles on his shoulder. “He’ll be alright . . . won’t he, Medi-wizard Braden? And the baby, too?  
  
Braden, a portly man with a manner that normally puts Charlie in mind of Albus Dumbledore at his most twinkly, is far too solemn and hesitant for an answer that is either simple or good. Something that is borne out by his first words since they’d entered the room.  
  
“Mrs. Weasley . . . that depends. . . .” he begins, shaking his head, and Charlie finds himself speaking.  
  
“On what? Tell me, and I’ll do it—I’ll do  _anything_  for them,” he says, squeezing Xander’s hand. He gets no response, as he hasn’t since this morning. “Please . . . tell me what to do so he’ll wake up.”  
  
Braden sighs, his light brown eyes never leaving Charlie’s. “I’m afraid that’d be a dangerous state for your husband and son right now, Charlie. At this point, there’s nothing to be done but keep Xander stable, and his condition from deteriorating—”  
  
“What  _is_  his condition?” Mum asks, and Braden’s head tilts at a considering angle.  
  
“In laymen’s terms, Mrs. Weasley, your son-in-law is in a coma, one that was occasioned by the demands on his energy of the pregnancy.” Braden’s bushy brows draw together. “You see . . . when a wizard becomes pregnant, from the moment of conception, the pregnancy draws on that wizard’s physical and mystical strength to keep the child healthy, or even just alive, in some cases. In those latter cases, unforunately . . . the wizard rarely carries the child fully to term. And the child, is rarely born alive or healthy. But Xander’s . . . been exceptionally strong and healthy throughout his pregnancy. His reserves of physical and mystical energy have been more than enough to keep him and Jake going along without any unmanageable problems. Until now.” His eyes dart between Charlie and Mum before settling on Charlie. “Both child and father have, of necessity, been rendered so deeply unconscious that the loss of energy has been halted to almost none at all. Their vitals are almost nonexistent—even brain and heart activity. And that’s a  _good_  thing, please, believe me,” Braden goes on, holding up his hands. “The coma means that Xander’s system is still strong enough to do what it needs to do. And right now, it needs to rest, and to conserve all its energy, so that that energy can go toward keeping them both healthy and alive until Jakob is ready to be born.”  
  
Charlie’s shaking his head. It’s difficult to think beyond his own cyclone of emotions and dearth of coherent thought. But one thing struggles through the morass to come tripping off his sluggish tongue. “So you’re saying this . . . coma . . . is safe?  _Good_ , even?”  
  
Braden nods. “And it’s certainly better than the alternative, Charlie.” He pauses to let that sink in then continues. “We are, of course,  _able_  to wake Xander from this coma, but I wouldn’t recommend that until after the birth.”  
  
“But that’s . . . still another two weeks away!” Charlie exclaims angrily, half-standing, but still holding Xander’s hand. “We can’t leave them in a coma for a whole fortnight!”  
  
“If we want them both to survive, we will, in fact, do exactly that,” Braden says so sternly, Charlie blinks and sits back down. “Your husband is, right now, at his most vulnerable. Even bed-rest wouldn’t be enough to keep him and Jake healthy. They  _need_  this coma, and his body knows that. Now, I’ve performed several monitoring spells, as well as stabilizing spells that will keep his body calm and insulated from any outside influences—”  
  
“You mean he doesn’t even know that I’m—that we, his  _family_ , are here with him?” Charlie asks, somewhat horrified at the idea of Xander being trapped in his own mind, all alone.  
  
 _But then, he’s not_ all _alone, is he? He has Jake . . . or at least the Jake who appears in his dreams. . . ._  
  
“He’s likely not even aware that he isn’t awake.” Braden frowns. “Unfortunately, we haven’t documented what goes on during this particular sort of coma, as regards the patient’s dream-state . . . or lack thereof.”  
  
“Oh, Merlin . . . what if he’s having nightmares in there?” Charlie moans, kissing Xander’s lax hand and closing his eyes on tears that fall, anyway as he imagines his love,  _his Xander_  trapped in nightmares for two weeks.  
  
 _But it’s better than Xander _dying_ , isn’t it? Better than losing him forever._  
  
Mum asks Braden a question which he answers heavily and at length, but Charlie’s tuned out. He brushes Xander’s hair back away from his face and cups Xander’s cool cheek. “I love you. And I’ll always take care of you,” he whispers, leaning in to kiss still, grey lips. “Whatever it takes to keep you and Jake alive . . . I’ll do it. I love you.”  
  
Xander doesn’t respond. Doesn’t so much as take a deeper breath. And won’t for another two weeks, at least.  
  
Charlie hangs his head and holds his breath for the next two days.  
  


*

  
  
“Charlie. . . ?”  
  
Charlie hasn’t so much as said  _hello_  to anyone or noticed anything that isn’t Xander since Braden had left Xander’s hospital room.  
  
The Medi-wizard had been back twice since, as part of his daily rounds of the maternity ward, and had spoken at Charlie each time about how stable and well Xander and Jake were. And each time, he’d eventually left with a sigh when Charlie didn’t respond.  
  
Other voices and presences had come and gone, some staying longer than others, some speaking to Charlie, some offering silent support. Some few talking at Xander’s sleeping form—Lily had been one of those, chattering on about how the dragons had been in Xander’s absence, till she’d started to cry, and her words became the hisses and sighs of Parseltongue—others taking the hand Charlie hadn’t appropriated.  
  
None of them had really captured Charlie’s attention, beyond the most peripheral.  
  
But this one . . . this one. . . .  
  
“Harry?” Charlie looks up at the person seated at Xander’s other side, holding his other hand. It is, indeed, Harry Potter, looking much the worse for wear. He’s got what Xander called  _crazy homeless-guy_  stubble, and his eyes are an irritated red around the green . . . like Christmas past.  
  
But he smiles when Charlie acknowledges him. “Hullo,” he says quietly, as if not wanting to disturb Xander. Charlie snorts a little.  
  
If only Xander  _could_  be so disturbed.  
  
But no . . . better that he sleep, to keep himself and Jake healthy. Charlie understands that. But he also understands something else:  
  
Whatever prompted this coma isn’t, as Medi-wizard Braden seems to think, natural. It is, in fact, very  _un_ natural. Why, all of a sudden, this drain on Xander’s energy? Out of nowhere?  _Xander_ ’s energy, which has been heretofore nearly boundless? Yes, he tires more easily these days, but that energy is always replenished. Never has it drained away, and  _stayed_  drained.  
  
It’s as if something is playing Keep-Away with that energy. . . .  
  
No, it is a most  _un_ natural coma, and Charlie, despite the despair encroaching on the last of his reason, has been attempting to put some puzzle pieces together. And the picture he sees is one he doesn’t like at all, but it’s far too obvious to be ignored or dismissed.  
  
As he has  _been_  doing for weeks, and at his husband’s and child’s peril.  
  
But no more.  
  
“—anything I can do . . . anything at all,” Harry’s saying in a choked voice, staring at Xander’s face and chafing his hand as if it’s the most fragile, delicate bird ever to light on his palm. In that moment, Harry’s heart in his eyes, Charlie understands something else he hadn’t before—either because he hadn’t noticed or hadn’t  _wanted_  to notice.  
  
“You love him.” It’s less an accusation and more of a statement. And Harry looks over at Charlie, his face miserable, but his eyes still dry.  
  
“Of course, I do—we’re family, and family—”  
  
“You know what I mean, Harry Potter.” Charlie sighs, shaking his head. “I’m not angry or anything. I understand why you feel the way you do. Honestly, I can’t imagine anyone who knows him  _not_  being madly in love with him.”  
  
“I promise, Charlie, I’m not at all pursuing any sort of action on whatever feelings I . . . may be experiencing,” Harry says lowly, earnestly, his green eyes steady on Charlie’s, tears falling now, unheeded and unchecked. “I would never, ever betray you, or myself by attempting to—”  
  
“I know, Harry, I know. Steady-on.” Charlie smiles a little. “I trust you completely. And more importantly, I trust  _Xander_. “ He sighs again. “And I never did thank you for all the ways you’ve been a friend to us—all the little and not so little things you’ve done to ease our life together—”  
  
Harry snorts, now, waving his hand. “If you mean the Romania-thing. . . .”  
  
“That, yes,” Charlie agrees. “And all the ways you’ve greased the Ministry wheels to allow Xander and me to have as normal a life as possible. The way you’re  _still_  no doubt greasing those wheels. And even for the seemingly small things, like hiding a rocking chair at Grimmauld Place, or letting a rusty old Seeker catch a snitch on Christmas Eve to impress his love.”  
  
Blushing, Harry looks away. “Charlie—”  
  
“But you  _love him_ , too. And for some reason, rather than make me as blind-jealous as it should—after all, what wizard in his right mind would knowingly choose an aging dragon-wrangler over _the_  Harry Potter—”  
  
“ _Xander_  would.” Harry’s eyes tick to Charlie’s again. “Every minute of every day. And he has been for the better part of a year. And always will.”  
  
“—it makes me feel less alone. You love him, too, Harry Potter, and that means I can trust you to do what’s best for him. To help me save him, no matter what.” Charlie pauses and looks down at Xander, steeling himself for voicing the toughest thing he’s ever had to say. “I know that they’re dying, Harry. No, listen,” he says, when Harry would interrupt with staunch protests and reassurances. “Braden may not think so—may think he’s got them stabilized and safe. But they’re not. I  _know_  there’s something more to this than Xander not having enough energy to function anymore.”  
  
When Charlie looks up at Harry again, Harry’s frowning down at Xander, no attempt to hide the quiet, but fierce feeling in his eyes. In his  _heart_. “And what do you think this  _more_  is?”  
  
Charlie squeezes his husband’s hand and, moved by some emotion he can neither name nor ignore, reaches across Xander for Harry’s hand. After a slight hesitation, Harry takes his hand. Squeezes it tight enough that the bones in Charlie’s hand creak just a bit.  
  
Harry’s eyes are intent, determined and Charlie draws strength from a love for his husband that just might rival his own.  
  
“I think they’ve been Cursed,” he says simply. And rather than scoff or dismiss Charlie’s simple statement of fact—and it  _is_  a fact, Charlie simply wants evidence to prove it . . . evidence that only Harry Potter could possibly help him find—Harry’s grim face grows, if possible, even more grim.  
  
“By whom?”  
  
“Does it matter?”  
  
“It matters,” Harry says calmly, something dangerous and deadly flashing in those dark lord-slayer eyes. Charlie shudders and looks away.  
  
“I don’t know who or what did the Cursing. But . . . Xander’s been having dreams. . . .” he shakes his head again. “Dreams I’ve been putting off doing anything about—and this is the result.” Swallowing, he blinks back tears. “He talks in his sleep. A  _lot_. Always the same things. About the Forbidden Forest and unicorns. And for the longest time I told myself that it meant nothing—that it didn’t mean what it meant. But it does. No one, even someone largely ignorant of the threats of the Forest, would be willing to go there to seek out unicorns unless they were dying. Or so fatally Cursed as to make no difference.”  
  
Harry’s glance slides to Xander again, curious and considering. “And the benediction of a unicorn—or the blood—can cure anything. Even death. Though the cost is great no matter which, benediction or blood, one is after—”  
  
“I know.” Charlie says softly, sighing. “Which tells me that whatever this Curse is, it’s . . . bad. Even if Xander’s dreams are telling him to get just a benediction . . . it won’t come cheap. The price may be more than we can pay, in which case. . . .”  
  
“In which case, that’s what you have  _me_  for,” Harry finishes softly, reaching out to touch Xander’s cheek. But he hesitates at the last second and glances at Charlie, who nods once.  
  
When Harry’s fingers brush Xander’s cheek, Harry shivers, and quickly pulls his hand away. He stands up briskly, wavering a little, as if dizzy then striding around the bed to put his hand on Charlie’s shoulder, which he squeezes.  
  
“With the Forbidden Forest now in our sights, the next thing to do is speak to Firenze. If nothing else, as a powerful Divinator, he may be able to tell us more about this Curse. And if we’re lucky, he may also be willing to lead us into the Forest. To the unicorns. After that, only Merlin could say. Or possibly Albus Dumbledore,” he says, all business, now, though the mantle of  _Harry Potter_  is quite brittle, and maybe has been for a long time. As brittle as the smile that accompanies the mention of Dumbledore. “I’ll go to Hogwarts straight away.”  
  
Charlie nods again, meeting Harry’s eyes, holding their intense gaze, and searching it briefly. “Thank you, Harry.” He covers Harry’s hand with his own for a few moments. “For believing me. For helping them. For  _everything_.”  
  
Harry quirks his hard, wry grin when Charlie lets go of his hand.  
  
“What else are brothers for?”  
  
Then he’s gone.  
  
Charlie heaves a sigh of relief and turns back to Xander, brushing the same spot Harry had, just on the opposite cheek.  
  
“You see, love? It’ll be alright. You’ve got two men here who believe you. Who love you. Who’ll do everything in their power to save you and Jake.” Charlie pulls Xander’s hand to his cheek once more and resumes his vigil, his other hand letting go of Xander’s to come rest on his ominously still stomach. “Just hold on. Both of you.  _Please_.”


	28. Harry Potter and the Forbidden Forest (1/2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we learn more about Jake, Jake’s destiny, and the nature of the Curse, and what’s at stake if it’s left to do its evil work. Firenze leads Harry, Charlie, and Xander into the Forbidden Forest as Xander goes into labor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes/Warnings: Canon compliant for both ‘verses. M-Preg. Set post-Chosen by about eleven years, and post DH/e by ten years (I fiddled with timelines a bit). Spoilers for BtVS “Chosen” and DH/e.  
> Disclaimer: Nope.

  
The first step was getting Xander moved from St. Mungo’s to the infirmary at Hogwarts.  
  
Everyone tried to talk Charlie out of it _—what if there was an emergency? What if something unexpected happened that Poppy Pomfrey wasn’t able to handle in the time it took for Medi-wizard Braden to get to Hogwarts? What if—?_  but despite the badgering of the family, Charlie was staunch, if a bit beat-down and slump-shouldered in his resolution.  
  
“This is  _my_  family.  _My_  husband and son . . . and I will do for them as I think best. And the best thing for them is to be at Hogwarts, right now.” Charlie spoke to the waiting, crowd of protesting Weasleys and Potters, but was looking directly at Mum, who was protesting the most.  
  
“Charles, you’re—not  _at_  your best. You’re upset and you’re making decision that aren’t based on reason.  _Why_  move Xander from the best hospital in the world to the Hogwarts infirmary, which is fine enough, but not when Xander and Jakes special needs are taken into account. Hogwarts is  _not_  the place where their fate should be decided!”  
  
 _And that’s_ not _where it will be decided,_  was obviously on the tip of his tongue—well, not obvious to the family, anyway—but he bit back the words as had been agreed. There was no sense in telling the family about a Curse we hadn’t even verified. Weren’t even, it must be said, telling anyone else besides a certain centaur about. As a result, the entire family was baffled. And worried.  
  
Even Poppy Pomfrey, as confident in her abilities as anyone I’d ever met, seemed baffled by Charlie’s sudden choice to have his pregnant, ill husband moved to the busy atmosphere of a school infirmary.  
  
And it’d been a bitch getting the Ministry to approve the transfer—taken me five solid days of maneuvering and glad-handing and arse-kissing—from a place where they could keep their watchful eye on him to Hogwarts.  
  
Minerva McGonagall’s approval to have the man who looked like Tom Riddle in her school at the end of his much-publicized pregnancy, had been nearly as hard to get in terms of resistance met. Though in the end, she’d been moved by her former student’s deep, though rather illogical, desire to have the birth take place somewhere familiar.  
  
Tough, indeed, to get their approval. But they’d been gotten. There’d been no other choice, really, other than leaving Xander here to die while his husband watched. . . .  
  
And that was not on. Not fucking on.  
  
So, after a week in which important casework was left to molder on a desk that rarely sees its owner anyway—and eight days of Xander being comatose, eight days of he and Charlie and their child wasting away in that hospital room—it’s finally time finally prepare for the journey through the Forest. Time to bone-up on certain defensive spells that don’t see much use in the course of even a field auror’s day. Time for the sort of research and reading that Hermione had always been brilliant at and Ron had always been bollocks at. The kind that Charlie, unable to drag himself from his husband’s side, doesn’t have the attention span or mental focus to do at this time.  
  
This has to be done, and done correctly. Done with zeal and thoroughness. Because the Forest didn’t give second chances. One stumble—one step off the Path could mean death. Or worse.  
  
And I don’t intend for any us to die any time soon. Especially not  _him_. Especially not  _Xander_. . . .  
  


*

  
  
Charlie hangs back impatiently at the edges of the small, curtained-off cubicle at the end of the infirmary, watching the medics get Xander situated in his new bed. At the head of the cubicle, Poppy Pomfrey stands like a sentinel, with hands on ample hips, wand at the ready in case the medics slip up in anyway.  
  
It almost makes Charlie smile, his lips twitching for the first time since that awful morning he’d gone to wake Xander and discovered that his husband was barely breathing . . . barely still alive.  
  
When the medics are done and gone, Charlie—who’s barely eaten and not bathed or groomed himself in the past nine days, and quite looks it—immediately sits in the cubicle’s one chair and takes Xander’s hand.  
  
“You’re welcome to make use of the facilities here, Charles Weasley. And I suggest you  _do so_. Starving yourself and smelling bad won’t make it any easier on you or your young man while he’s in this coma!” Poppy says sternly. Charlie  _actually_  smiles, this time, though he doesn’t look away from Xander.  
  
“Perhaps. Once Harry’s here to sit with him, I might let him spell me on keeping Xander company. I just . . . don’t like for him to be alone and defenseless while he’s . . . sleeping so deeply.” Now, he turns pleading eyes on Poppy, whose stern look softens, and she sighs.  
  
“Charles . . . he’s perfectly safe here—safer, even, than he’d be at St. Mungo’s.”  
  
“I know. But I just . . . don’t like to leave him alone when he’s like this,” Charlie says, turning his gritty eyes back to Xander.  
  
And if Poppy says anything in reply to that, Charlie doesn’t hear it. He’s too busy keeping watch on his husband and child.  
  
Eventually, Poppy leaves him to it, and Charlie sits in silence and the westering sunlight coming in from the window. Sits, and yearns with a heart as pure and full as any that ever loved, for the lives of his family.  
  
Were he to go to those windows and look out, he would see the huge, wild green thicket that is the Forest, along with the slowly fading shades of a very pregnant, dark-haired man, holding the hand of a small, auburn-haired child—both watching the castle with equal parts high anxiety and breathless hope—at the head of the Path into the Forest.  
  


*

  
  
“Charlie.”  
  
Bolting up from where he’d fallen into a fitful sleep in the chair by Xander’s bed, still holding Xander’s hand, Charlie finds himself blinking up at a worried Harry Potter, and next to Harry . . . a Palomino centaur with platinum hair and astonishingly blue eyes in handsome, human, but vaguely . . .  _other_  face.  
  
“Harry . . . and Firenze, I presume?” Charlie bites back a yawn and holds out his hand to the pair. Harry takes it immediately. Firenze . . . takes a moment to consider the hand before shaking it gravely. Then not letting it go even after a respectable amount of time for shaking has come and gone.  
  
“Charles Weasley, I see great gain in your near future . . . and great loss,” Firenze says, without so much as a  _hullo_ , first. His long tail swishes in agitation. “Great joy and great pain. The things that change will stay the same, while the things that stay the same will be forced to change.”  
  
With that said, Firenze turns to Xander, frowning, and finally lets go of a shuddering Charlie’s hand. His own rough hand reaches out toward Xander’s stomach, and Charlie, with a Seeker’s speed, darts out and catches Firenze by the wrist, scowling.  
  
“I don’t think so, mate.”  
  
“Charlie—” Harry begins sternly, adjusting his glasses. “This is important. He needs to read Xander’s past, present, and future, as well as Jake’s to know if we’re going to have any success with the unicorns. I promise: he won’t hurt Xander or Jake.”  
  
Charlie, still frowning, stares Firenze in his intense eyes—finds he can’t read whatever’s there, other than urgency and determination—and eventually lets go of Firenze’s wrist, nodding once. “Alright. I trust you.  _Harry_.”  
  
Firenze’s lips curve in a slight smile, and his hand descends to Xander’s duvet-covered (one of Mum’s) stomach.  
  
If Charlie had expected a dramatic reaction, he certainly gets it, for Firenze’s smile turns into a frown. Then another smile. Then a look of pure negation that’s universal among all beings.  
  
“The boy is Cursed to die,” he says simply, removing his hand and shaking his platinum head. “He will die, and Xander Weasley will be helpless but to die with him—”  
  
“ _No_ —!” Charlie starts, standing up, hands clenched into fists, but Firenze goes on, rather sedately despite his previous words.  
  
“They will both  _die_  . . . unless this Death-Curse is nullified. You are right to seek out the unicorns child,” he adds, though this last is spoken seemingly toward Xander. Or, more specifically, Xander’s stomach, upon which he lays his hand once more, very gently. Then Firenze tilts his head at a listening angle, his slight frown turning into another amused, if small, smile. “The child says:  _Of course I am right. I have learnt more about death and Curses than most beings will ever know_.”  
  
“You—you can hear him?” Charlie asks, floored, and dropping back into his chair like a stone into a pond. “He . . . he can  _speak_?”  
  
Firenze gives Charlie an opaque look. “All children can speak. It is merely a matter of understanding what they say.”  
  
Charlie’s mouth drops open and he struggles for words. “So . . . it  _was_  Jake telling Xander to go find the unicorns?”  
  
“He hasn’t yet forgotten who he once was.” Firenze bows his head almost sadly. “Though he wishes this more than anything. And the time  _is_  coming when the man he was will be subsumed into the man he will become. The promise of happiness will keep him forgetful for many years . . . but not forever. Not forever. Dire need will break the promise of forgetfulness in due course, and  _everything_  will be remembered.” He shakes his platinum head. “The Bright Child must live to fulfill his purpose.”  
  
Charlie and Harry share a glance.  
  
“What purpose is that?” Harry asks intently, at the same time Charlie asks in complete befuddlement: “The man he  _was_?  _Bright Child_?”  
  
Firenze’s hooves clack as he backs away from the bed, his hand sliding off of Xander’s stomach. He looks Harry, then Charlie in the eyes. “I will lead you to into the Forest, not to where the unicorns den, for that is sacrosanct. But I will lead you to one of the pools from which they frequently drink. It is in their power to remove this Curse of death that was placed on the Bright Child, when he was the Man of Shadows. Whether they will choose to do so . . . or to even hear your plaint, is . . . not certain. The only thing that is certain is that death created Death, and only life can break the Curse. The least of many  _he_  left behind. One of the last Unbreakables to be broken.”  
  
And with that, he turns to leave, tail still swishing, but slowly now. He is, no doubt, quite satisfied that he’s been very helpful. Charlie barks a disbelieving laugh.  
  
“ _An Unbreakable_?” Harry says, sounding unpleasantly startled. Then he’s shaking his head. “But we’ve  _caught_  all the Unbreakables and  _broken_  them. At least all of  _his_  Unbreakables. This one  _can’t_  be his. It must be someone else’s. I mean, why would even  _he_  lay a Death-Curse on his own line?” Harry demands almost shrilly, his hands clenching into fists so tight, Charlie expects blood to begin to issue from them. His own questions—legion, and unorganized in his brain, so that he can’t even begin to voice most of them—die on his lips as Harry’s face goes from unhappily puzzled to angry uncertainty. “Why?”  
  
“But the Curse is not  _on_  the house of Riddle. It is on the Man of Shadows, and must be removed if he is to live to become the Bright Child.” Firenze sighs, pausing. “The prophecies regarding the Child are . . . clear, but uncertain.”  
  
“What prophecies? How can a prophecy be both clear  _and_  uncertain?” Charlie does some demanding of his own, looking back at Xander for a moment, then up at Harry, whose breath is coming rapidly, nostrils flaring, hands clenched tighter than ever. Finally, the other questions come. “Will one of you tell me what’s going on? Who’s this Man of Shadows? What’s an Unbreakable? Who Cursed my son before he was even  _born_? Why?  _Why are there prophecies about_ my child _that I don’t know about? And what about Xander?_ ”  
  
Firenze turns his head, but doesn’t quite look over his shoulder.  
  
“It is time and past. Will you, at last, be truthful with him, Harry Potter? Or will you let love continue to blind you?” he asks softly, then clip-clops out of the infirmary, leaving stunned and guilty silence in his wake.  
  
Charlie’s gaze comes to rest on Harry Potter, his brother in all but blood, and one of his closest friends. A man he has trusted above all others.  
  
A man who apparently, if Firenze is to be believed, has been lying to him by omission.  
  
“What did he mean by that, Harry?” Charlie asks quietly, suddenly very tired. He wants nothing more than to lay down with Xander and sleep, too. But he can’t. Not till Xander and Jake are safe. Not until these . . . secrets are known.  
  
Harry takes a breath and releases his clenched hands before turning to face Charlie, his gaze grim, but firm.  
  
“Before I say anything else, please believe that what I’ve done—what I’ve kept quiet—I’ve only done out of concern for your safety. The safety of all three of you. And because . . . I love you, and wish to see you live as normal a life as possible. Especially Xander.” Harry pauses and takes another deep breath. “For the past six months, Divinators all across Great Britain have been seeing . . . portents. Portents concerning a Dark Man, or Man of Shadows, who will walk among us once more as a Bright Child. A child of destiny, fated to do many things that want doing.  _Good_ things,” he adds reassuringly, holding up his hands to forestall questions. Questions Charlie is too gobstruck to ask.  
  
“These prophecies have been coming more frequently, and have been growing clearer as Xander’s pregnancy has progressed. But the coming of the Bright Child is uncertain. Death itself stands in the Child’s way:  _his first great battle but, should he prevail, not his last_. If the Child wins through—well, let’s just say, the Wizarding world will, thanks to the Child, see years of peace and plenty. If the Child fails, or  _is failed_  . . . our ending—and I do mean that literally—won’t be nearly so happy.” Harry looks down now, at his hands. There are indeed half-moon shaped, bloody indentations in his palms. “The Ministry knows,  _has known_  practically since the beginning who the prophecies were about. They’ve known  _everything,_  but the shape the Bright Child’s death-battle would take. We had nothing but suppositions that, it turns out, fell far short of the facts: there’s a Death-Curse on him. A thing of such rare and pure hatred, only the touch or blood of a unicorn could destroy it.”  
  
Once more unable to form coherent questions, Charlie merely shakes his head and asks the one thing that swims up from the morass of confusion that is his beyond-exhausted mind. “These . . . prophecies . . . what do they say of Xander?”  
  
Harry frowns, and now won’t meet Charlie’s eyes.  
  
“He is referred to briefly, and interchangeably as the  _mother_  of the Child, The Man Who Doesn’t Exist, and . . . The Man Without a Future.”  
  
Charlie instantly goes cold, squeezing Xander’s hand. Harry continues softly.  
  
“There’re two prophecies that make mention of a  _sacrifice made_  by The Man Without a Future . . . and a  _great reward_  for The Man Who Doesn’t Exist, respectively.” Harry moves closer to Charlie and hesitantly lays a hand on his shoulder. Too numbed and in shock to shake his shoulder free, Charlie bows his head.  
  
“Well, which is it—a sacrifice or a reward? Or does he make a sacrifice and get a reward?” Charlie looks up at Harry desperately, who shakes his head and shrugs. Charlie snorts despondently. “Would you even tell me if you knew?”  
  
Tilting his chin up forthrightly, Harry swallows, his eyes taking on a suspicious shine. “On more honor than I’ve heretofore displayed, I would tell you, Charlie. The only reason I didn’t tell you and Xander was to protect you. To give you as much time and happiness as possible. The Wizengamot was, for once, all for full disclosure to you both, but I talked them out of that and into a rather massive cover-up,” Harry admits, swallowing again. “I didn’t want to see your happiness taken away. Didn’t want to see what . . . what might be your final months together as a family tainted by all the horror and bullshit that comes with capital-P Prophecies, as it did my parents, and Neville Longbottom’s.”  
  
“But it’s not up to you to decide what Xander and I don’t know about our lives and the life of our child, Harry Potter! You’re  _not_  Albus Dumbledore!” Charlie exclaims angrily, and Harry laughs, as bitter a thing as Charlie’s ever heard.  
  
“Believe me, I know that. Unlike Albus, even my  _best_  efforts to protect the ones I love go awry, and—” Harry lets out a breath that shudders and shakes. “I’m so sorry. In light of all that’s been happening in the past eight months—Tom Riddle’s bloody  _clone_  appearing out of nowhere, speaking Parseltongue and making friends with  _dragons_ , then turning up pregnant with the next savior of the wizarding world—” Harry laughs that bitter laugh again, running his injured hand through his unkempt dark hair. “And on top of all that, he’s not only  _family_  but someone I’ve fallen madly in love with—oh, yes, Charlie, it’s exactly as you said: the more I get to know him, the more I love him, till he’s become my first thought upon waking and my last thought upon going to sleep, even on the rare nights my wife sleeps next to me—and would die for, if called. With all that happening in less than a year . . . my sense of what’s right and wrong and _necessary_  have become slightly spam-jangled!”  
  
Another laugh, and Harry buries his face in his hands, shoulders shaking either with more of that unhappy laughter, or with tears.  
  
Charlie opens his mouth, uncertain of what will come out. He’s never seen Harry Potter cry. Not even close.  
  
“I’m sorry,” he says finally, softly, reaching out and up to put a hand on Harry’s hard, under-padded shoulder. “So sorry, Harry. I don’t . . . agree with you keeping all of this from us, but I understand your motives . . . I understand the bone-deep  _need_  to protect what you love at all costs.”  
  
Harry shakes his head and drags his hands up his dry face and back into his hair again, clenching until the normally ever-present worry-lines in his brow disappear. He’s grinning his hard, angry grin, and yearning and tears stand out in his eyes as he stares down at Xander.  
  
“And the bitch of it is,” he says lowly, “is that I don’t know  _how_  to save him. The prophecies aren’t a help, and neither are any of the Divinators I’ve seen. And believe me, I’ve seen them all. No one can tell me how to save him, and that’s—I’ve always known or been able to find out  _how_ to save them. It’s just a matter of having the strength and fortitude to do it. And  _that_  I  _always_ find. But this time, it’s all backward. I’ve got the strength and fortitude. The  _will_ , and no idea how to go about doing whatever needs to be done. Other than this blasted unicorns plan—which is, by the way, as bloody mental as it is unlikely to succeed. But it’s literally all we’ve got. . . .”  
  
At the end of this rant, he steps quickly around the bed and takes Xander’s other hand, squeezing it once before raising it to his lips to kiss lax fingers lingeringly, repeatedly.  
  
“I love you,” he says plainly between kisses, his eyes sparkling and intense through their veils of clinging tears. “I  _love you_ , and I’m failing you. I’m so sorry.”  
  
Charlie watches this with something like pity, something like worry, something like horror.  
  
Harry reaches out and caresses Xander’s pale cheek tenderly and mouths something on Xander’s fingers Charlie can’t make out, before pulling away and stalking out of the cubicle, black and grey robe flaring out behind his narrow, ramrod-straight body. For a moment, anyway, Charlie is reminded of Severus Snape at his most determined.  
  
“I’ve got more research to do . . . maybe a last few Divinators to try. The dodgy, last-resort ones. I’ll meet you back here in three days with what, if anything, I’ve learnt.”  
  
Then, once again, Harry Potter is gone.  
  
And the bulk of Charlie’s questions are still unanswered.  
  


*

  
  
It’s more than a little, mental, I know.  
  
My . . . well, my obsession, let’s be absolutely blunt about it . . . with a man who looks exactly like the bane of my existence.  
  
A man who, for all his physical resemblance to Tom Riddle—a man who is, physically,  _Tom Riddle_ —could not be any more different from that monster if he tried.  
  
It’s mental and it’s wrong and it’s the most powerful feeling I’ve ever felt for anyone who wasn’t my late mother or Albus Dumbledore. If I’d ever, even for a little while, felt what I feel for Xander Weasley for  _my wife_ , our marriage would still be viable, just based on the memory of how it felt to lose myself when looking into a certain pair of eyes. That feeling of drowning and flying and falling and being wrapped up in safe, loving warmth. . . .  
  
I dream of him, of course. Of doing simple things with him: of sitting and talking before a fireplace that’s  _ours_. Of strolling through Diagon Alley with him on my arm. Of placing my hand on his stomach and knowing that  _my child_  rests safe within. . . .  
  
I dream of us laughing and loving—ye gods! The dreams of loving are so intense I wake up spent, with tears in my eyes and his name on my lips—and—  
  
And how can anything that feels so right, so  _good_ , be so  _wrong_?  
  
Because, I suppose, the person I feel those feelings for—the person who inspires this to-the-death, kamikaze love is already bound by love and magic to a man who is my brother in all but blood. Bound and tied and  _happy_. On the verge of starting a family with that man. . . .  
  
Assuming Xander and his child live long enough to do so, that is.  
  
Merlin, and Charlie’s a bloody  _wreck_. Falling to pieces—deteriorating as fast as Xander is. I daresay if Xander doesn’t survive this, regardless of whether or not their son, the so-called _Bright Child_ —and isn’t  _that_  ironic . . . the child who’ll one day, if we’re all  _very_  lucky, live to outshine The Boy Who Lived, was once that Boy’s second most dire bane . . .  _that’s_  one thing I’ve kept back from Charlie, for now, and one day he may thank me for that—survives and thrives, Charlie will not. If Xander dies, Charlie will follow him, by hook or by crook, as sure as night follows day.  
  
I suppose that’s the line of demarcation. The difference between true love and an abiding obsession: true love languishes, and obsession . . . keeps ticking on, looking for ways to  _keep on_ ticking on.  
  
I suppose. . . .  
  
Oh, I don’t know what I suppose. Not anymore. I only know that someone I wish I couldn’t live without is dying and there’s no way I can save him.  
  
At least not that I yet know of.  
  
But a lot can happen in three days, can’t it?  
  
Can’t it?  
  
And who knows? Maybe if we can save the so-called  _Bright Child_  . . . it’s first act of redemption will be to save the parent who sacrificed for it. . . .  
  
Until then, it’s off to the next dodgy Divinator Knockturn Alley has to offer.  
  


*

  
  
On the first day after Harry leaves, Charlie weathers visits from his family, who still try to convince him to remove Xander and Jake back to St. Mungo’s.  
  
He very nearly loses his patience with them, and has to frequently remind himself that they don’t know what he knows, and that, were he in their position, he’d think anyone doing what he’s done was a nutter, as well.  
  
“Charlie, surely you must see that St. Mungo’s is the best place for him,” Mum finally says. She’s currently their only visitor, most of the family being at work or school at an overcast ten a.m.  
  
Charlie sighs and holds Xander’s hand up to his cheek. “Mum, trust me, please. He  _needs_  to be here. I can’t talk about why, but . . . it’s  _imperative_  that we be here if Xander and Jake are to survive the birth.”  
  
“But certainly they’ll have a much higher chance of survival at St. Mungo’s,” Mum begins, placing a gentle hand on Charlie’s head.  
  
“There’re an entire nation of Divinators that say otherwise, Mum.” Charlie looks up at her, catching a look of distress and disbelief on her unusually tired face. He tries to smile reassuringly. “Let’s just say I’ve learnt some . . . things. Been told of predictions about . . . Jake . . . that indicate  _here_  is the best place for him to be now,” he temporizes.  
  
“Charlie—predictions—do you mean—” Mum breaks off, eyes widening. “Do you mean . . . _prophecies_? About  _Jakob_ ”  
  
Charlie looks away, back at Xander, so still and so vulnerable.  
  
“Please don’t tell anyone else about this. Even the Ministry’s and the Wizengamot’s been trying to keep it close. It’s the only chance we—Xander, Jake, and I—have of living a relatively normal life. Assuming  _that_  they . . . live through this. . . .” Charlie laughs wearily. He hasn’t been sleeping much for the past eleven days. And when he does, he dreams . . . has nightmares. “I know you don’t like to keep secrets from Dad, but—”  
  
“You have my word, it doesn’t go beyond this cubicle.” Mum leans down and kisses Charlie’s crown. “But are you  _certain Hogwarts_  is the best place for such a risky birth to happen? Prophecy, or not?”  
  
Charlie’s certain it’s  _not_. And neither is the Forbidden Forest. But considering that Xander’s due date is two days hence, the labor, at least, will happen partly in one of those places. And assuming they get the benediction of a unicorn, they  _may_  be able to risk  _Apparating_  as far as the Hogwarts infirmary before such a spell becomes too risky.  
  
Going as far as London is absolutely out of the question.  
  
“I’m certain, Mum,” Charlie says, opening eyes he hadn’t been aware of closing. He sees Xander even when his eyes are closed, anyway. His husband is branded there, from days of nothing but watching and waiting.  
  
Mum sighs heavily. “Oh, Charles . . . if I stay and look after him for a bit, will you at least get something to eat? And Scourgify yourself, too, if you won’t take a shower?”  
  
Charlie smiles then laughs for the first time in forever.  
  


*

  
  
On the second day, even Percy clears his busy schedule and comes for a visit. Tries to talk Charlie into going back to St. Mungo’s, with hints of a threat of suing for temporary custody of Xander in his comatose state, and having Xander removed to St. Mungo’s himself.  
  
“I know you think you’re doing what’s best for Alexander and the child, but you’re not. Hogwarts’ infirmary is no place for an at-risk birth such as this one. You may think that it is, but that in itself is proof that you aren’t thinking clearly, Charles,” Percy says in that  _way_  he has that’s always set Charlie on edge.  
  
Charlie does not take either Percy’s tone or his threats well, and their discussion, heretofore tense and rather one-sided, descends into a whispered argument of recriminations and insults that goes on until Poppy threatens to throw them both out.  
  
The argument summarily ends, and Percy stalks out, promising to be back the next day by noon with a warrant for custody of Xander, and a writ for his immediate removal to St. Mungo’s Maternity Ward.  
  
“It’s for his good, the child’s good, and yours, Charles. In time, you’ll see that,” echoes in the infirmary, along with the click of his boots as he strides out.  
  
Charlie snorts, and goes back into Xander’s cubicle, taking his husband’s slack, cool hand.  
  
“Can you believe that nonsense, Xand?” he asks. Over the past two days, he’s taken to talking to Xander as if Xander can hear him (and some part of him believes Xander can). “He’s never been anything but up his own arse, that Percy. But it doesn’t matter. By this time, tomorrow, we’ll be in the Forbidden Forest, hopefully convincing unicorns to lift this damned Curse . . . and then. . . .”  
  
Charlie sighs, trying to imagine life free and in the clear with their son safely born, and Xander awake and alive and happy . . . and can’t quite.  
  
He leans on the bed and kisses Xander’s hand.  
  
“I love you,” he says quietly, bowing his head over the hand in his own, careful not to wet it with his falling tears.  
  


*

  
  
Early on the third day, Firenze shows up, his platinum hair and tail glowing star-white in the first of dawn’s light.  
  
He stations himself at Xander’s other side, and carefully, gently puts his hand on Xander’s stomach, a small smile gracing his spare mouth.  
  
“The Bright Child comes,” he says softly, removing his hand. And it’s only because the rest of Xander is so unnaturally still that Charlie sees it: the slight, sluggish movements under the place where Firenze’s hand had lain.  
  
Jake is kicking again.  
  


*

  
  
Shortly after dawn, after Jake’s sluggish kicking has intensified to the point that were Xander not in a coma, he’d probably be extremely uncomfortable, Harry shows up. He’s grim, as ever, and his eyes, though meeting Charlie’s squarely, always drift back to Xander. And how they  _burn_ when they linger!  
  
For the briefest of moments, Charlie feels like an eavesdropper in his own bloody marriage.  
  
“Your only job as we enter and traverse the Forest, Charlie, will be to keep a firm shield on Xander, as well as a steady, consistent  _Mobilicorpus_. Firenze will lead the way, and I’ll bring up the rear, wand-ready,” Harry says, briskly all business. But for that almost possessive burning in his eyes. “For now, we’ll have to get out of the castle unseen. I’ll cast an illusion of you and Xander still being here that should do the trick until Poppy gets to him in her rounds. In the meantime, I can get us out of the castle unseen by any save a few paintings.”  
  
Charlie almost smiles. “The Marauders Map?”  
  
Harry smiles back, though it’s mirthless, then takes out the much-folded Map from an inner robe pocket. “Even after all these years, I’m still up to no good. But thankfully, my mischief is managed.”  
  
Rolling his eyes, Charlie glances at Firenze, who’s looking out the west-facing windows distractedly, then turns a gentle gaze on Xander and Jake.  
  
“Time to go, loves,” he says tenderly, taking out his wand, swishing, and flicking. “ _Mobilicorpus_.”  
  


*

  
  
Snow crunches underfoot as we take the trail toward Hagrid’s hut, and pass by it as quietly as we may. Thankfully, Fang II doesn’t let up a ruckus, as usual. Though, this early, the lazy animal’s probably still asleep. Hagrid is, according to the Map, already in the castle.  
  
In front of me, speaking in a quiet murmur to his floating husband, Charlie—in his hastily transfigured coat—hesitates as we get closer to the bounds of the Forest. Until, at what could be called the first vestiges of it, of pine and yew grouped in dense clumps and bunches, he balks completely.  
  
“I can’t, Harry.” He looks back at me, his eyes desperate and afraid. But not for himself, that much is clear. “I can’t take them in  _there_.”  
  
“You can and you will, Charlie,” I say as sternly as possible, even though my own instinct shrills at me to whisk Xander as far from this awful tangle as possible. For I know his only chance at survival lay within. I tell Charlie as much. “It’s their only chance, and you know it. We  _have_  to go, and we can’ waste time sat here, catering to your fears. This is about  _Xander_. And Jake,” I add, almost belatedly. Though it’s become less so, it’s still rather difficult to think of the child Xander carries as a  _baby_  . . . something with a clean slate and no problematic baggage on its back. To think of such a burdened, ambiguous soul as this era’s Bright Child.  
  
“It’s about  _all_  of us, Charles Weasley,” Firenze says suddenly, and both Charlie and I look at him, surprised. But Firenze is staring into the darkness of the Forest. “The danger is not negligible, traversing the Forest . . . and our destination lay near the very heart . . . but the only other choice is for the Bright Child and The Man Without a Future to die with no chance of being saved.”  
  
Now, he turns his blue gaze on Charlie and I. He reaches behind his back, and takes off his bow and takes one arrow out of a quiver-full. “I will do my best to guide and protect, as well. Fear not.”  
  
And with that, he turns and makes his way under the shadow of the first trees.  
  
Giving me one last, pleading look—a look that I return stonily, because that’s what’s necessary, and if there’s one thing I’m an expert at, it’s doing what’s necessary—Charlie’s shoulders slump, and he faces forward again, taking a few uncertain steps after Firenze. Finally he squares those broad shoulders and gestures with his wand.  
  
He and Xander’s sleeping form are now moving on at a determined pace, one that makes me almost smile. If we’re to save him, we needs must both be strong enough to do the necessary. I think we will be.  
  
I step forward, wand at the ready.  
  
It is only a few more steps before we are swallowed by the Forbidden Forest.


	29. Harry Potter and the Forbidden Forest (2/2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry, Charlie, and Firenze brave the Forbidden Forest in search of unicorns, and a cure for the Curse. Peril awaits them in several forms. Xander makes a choice. As the darkness of the Forest sets in, the Bright Child comes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes/Warnings: Canon compliant for both ‘verses. M-Preg. Set post-Chosen by about eleven years, and post DH/e by ten years (I fiddled with timelines a bit). Spoilers for BtVS “Chosen” and DH/e.  
> Disclaimer: Me? Why, I never!

The air of the Forest is . . . different. Close and claustrophobic. Dark and choked.  
  
 _Dim_.  
  
The further in we go, the more it’s as if the Forest itself is trying to suffocate us into going back the way we came. Or maybe just trying to suffocate us. . . .  
  
Ahead of me, Firenze trots slowly forward, seemingly unconcerned, but for the arrow notched to his sturdy yew bow and the tense set to his broad shoulders.  
  
Behind him, another set of broad, tense shoulders move, and a soft, quiet murmur can be heard coming from their owner: Charlie telling a floating, unconscious Xander what we’re up to. Why we’re in this madhouse masquerading as a forest.  
  
And then there’s me, bringing up the rear, very much on my guard, squinting into the many shadows this forest has to offer, under its thick, sunlight-devouring canopy. Everything around us is in shades of green, brown, grey and purples that’ve only barely, rarely seen the direct light of the sun.  
  
We shouldn’t, any of us, even Firenze, be here. Especially Xander, California-boy that he is. He was made for the light, and under the gloom of this place, he already seems more frail, more . . . diminished than he did in the infirmary, never mind as when he was awake.  
  
I find myself smiling, remembering Xander as he had been months ago, before the first of the prophecies about his child had come rolling in. All shaggy hair and uncertain, but lovely smile . . . and his eyes . . . though I doubt anyone had bothered to tell him or Charlie why, the reason for the heterochromia of his regenerated eye was likely the magic used to do that regeneration, drawing on the stem cells used to create Xander.  _Quentin Oliver_ ’s cells. And the man had had eyes the color of spring grass, so Xander’s new eyes, unlike his other eye, and Riddle’s eyes, turned out spring grass-green.  
  
And yet . . . knowing the reason behind them didn’t take away one jot from their strange beauty. Didn’t make my heart beat any less fast while looking into them. Something I’d tried to avoid doing, until I realized that Xander was taking it rather personally—had thought some new problem had sprung up between us and confronted me about it.  
  
I don’t even remember what I’d stammered out as an excuse, but that’d put an end to my avoiding his gaze. His warm, direct gaze. . . .  
  
Such thoughts fly away as I bump into Charlie’s back and he glances over his shoulder.  
  
“Alright there, Harry?” he asks absently, sounding shaken. As well he should be. I’m wool-gathering, in the Forbidden Forest. And even for one who’s still on the Path, that’s not good.  
  
“Fine, fine,” I take a few steps back and lean around him. We’ve stopped in a small, relatively open glade. “What’s the hold-up?”  
  
“See for yourself.”  
  
And beyond Xander’s body, perhaps a meter away, Firenze is standing completely still and sniffing the air, arrow nocked and pointed up into the trees.  
  
I follow his gaze and think I see . . . something . . . a shadow, perhaps, that shouldn’t be suspended where it is, directly above the center of the glade. . . .  
  
But not moving.  
  
“One of Aragog’s many descendants,” Firenze says softly, lowering his bow and arrow and continuing quickly, but almost silently down the path, with many a glance up and back. “We will pass by quietly, and hope she does not awaken to alert her kin to our presence.”  
  
Charlie glances back at me, his face a rictus of horror. I shrug, and lower my wand, which had been pointing in the direction of Firenze’s arrow. “You heard him,” I whisper, and nod in the direction our guide is moving. “Excelsior.”  
  
Swallowing, Charlie nods back and steps quickly, but quietly forward. I follow, not right on his heels, but not lingering, either.  
  
Even with the glade half an hour behind us, Charlie does not resume his quiet ramble to poor, unconscious Xander. Instead, he’s focusing on the Forest to either side of the Path.  
  
And so the morning passes in calm, eerie near-silence. Every so often, one of us will stop to listen, look, or scent something, wand or arrow coming up or out.  
  
Mostly these moments of alarm are false.  
  
At least one time, the alarm is disturbingly spot-on:  
  
The Acromantula horde tromping through the Forest mere yards away goes right by us, on some spidery business of their own. Whether or not they realize we’re there—and simply don’t care, for some reason—is a debate we don’t have the time or safety for. It is merely agreed upon, once they pass us by, that whatever thing or circumstance that had hastened them on so is something for which  _we_  should keep out a weather-eye.  
  
By early afternoon, I get the distinct feeling that we’re being watched and followed. And we are.  
  
We are, Firenze informs us, sounding rather concerned, for him, nearing his people’s territory.  
  
“I would advise again any startling motions, Harry Potter and Charles Weasley. And against speaking while your wands are out. They are aware of your presence, and will follow us for some ways, until we have left their territory. If they think you’re spell-casting, they’ll kill us all.” Firenze warns, his gaze intent and heavy. Before Charlie can ask a question, I quickly clap my hand over his mouth. When he turns to look at me, I shake my head  _no_ , then nod at the way ahead.  
  
Finally, Charlie nods, too, understanding dawning in his eyes, and acceptance. I remove my hand and we continue on.  
  
By mid-afternoon, the feeling of being watched and followed fades, and slowly disappears.  
  
“You may speak, now, Charles Weasley.”  
  
Charlie lets out a breath as if he’s been holding it for the past two hours.  
  
“What if some’at had attacked us while your friends were following us? What then? Were we supposed to not defend ourselves in favor of getting studded with arrows?” Charlie demands querulously. At this, Firenze actually chuckles.  
  
“The only dangerous thing in centaur territory today is two armed and nervous wizards,” he says, casting us a wry look before trotting down the path rather more quickly than he had been when his people were following us. “Come, let us hasten, while we still have a few hours of light left. I would caution against being near the heart of the Forest past dusk, if we do not find the unicorns by then.”  
  
I pat a still-gaping Charlie on the back, fighting a smile, despite the circumstances. “He’s right, you know? Let’s keep moving.”  
  
He gives me a look that isn’t at all approving. “If I didn’t know you better, Harry Potter, I’d swear you were enjoying this little jaunt.”  
  
I shrug. “This is deeper into the Forest than I’ve ever been, and I’m still alive to marvel at it. I don’t even know that Hagrid’s dared come this far in.”  
  
“Wise man, that Hagrid,” Charlie mutters to himself, moving briskly onward. “Well, there’s nothing for it but to get it done, I suppose.”  
  
I couldn’t agree more.  
  


*

  
  
Shortly after they’ve passed near-silently through what Firenze had named another small patch of Acromantula territory, the centaur calls a brief halt—their third—and Charlie, already exhausted before this trek, all but collapses in the middle of the narrow Path, lowering his slumbering husband into his waiting, rubbery arms.  
  
Xander seems far too light, and Charlie holds him closer, kissing his forehead. “Almost there, love. Almost there. Just like you told me . . . just like I promised . . . hold on. . . .”  
  
He can feel Firenze’s curious, solemn stare, and Harry’s restrained covetous one, and doesn’t care. One hand goes to Xander’s stomach, where Jake is still kicking, though the kicks have slowed from flurries, to sporadic jabs. Hard little jabs, that still don’t so much as cause Xander to take a deeper breath.  
  
“Normally he’d be complaining, mostly good-naturedly, about how much Jake is kicking him, and how hard,” Charlie says quietly, looking up at Firenze then Harry, finding the expressions on their faces to be what he expects: curiosity and covetousness, respectively. He smiles, and is startled when tears roll down his cheeks. “He’d tell me how it’s all my fault. That I was a kicker and now our son’s taking after me, obviously. But he’d still be smiling. And I think . . . I think every kick was a blessing for him, because it meant that Jake was safe and healthy. That  _Xander was keeping him_  safe and healthy. . . .  
  
“Oh, bloody hell,” he mutters, sniffling as tears fall on Xander’s transfigured cloak. Then in Xander’s hair as he kisses the crown of Xander’s head.  
  
Soon, he feels a hand land on his shoulder, hard and squeezing that way. Another hand soon joins it on Charlie’s other shoulder, heavy but gentle.  
  
“And should our quest go well, he shall live to complain about his blessings with the other children you sire on him,” Firenze says gently, and Charlie looks up, startled.  
  
“Other . . . children?” he asks tentatively, through numb lips, torn between hope and horror. Another child? After the nightmare of the past two weeks? And the nightmare that might lie ahead?  
  
And yet . . .  _another child_  . . .  _other children_. With Xander. Current worries aside, Charlie’s heart swells with the thought. . . .  
  
Firenze smiles cryptically, and looks away, at the darkening sky. “We would do well to move on, soon.” We are nearing the pool, at which the unicorns linger but briefly after twilight.”  
  
“And you’re certain they’ll be there this evening to drink?” Harry asks tersely.  
  
“Unicorns are creatures of habit, like so many magical beings. They will be at this pool where the lives of the Bright Child and The Man Without a Future shall be decided,” Firenze intones gravely, his smile fading as he looks at them again. “It falls to us to be there in time to meet them.”  
  
“Well, then.” Charlie, looking into those blue-blue eyes feels a sudden burst of energy. A fourth wind, of sorts, that sees him guiding Xander’s body back up to its former five feet off the ground as he, himself, stands, his shaking, tired wand-arm firming and stilling. “Let’s get this show on the road.”  
  
Harry claps his shoulder approvingly then they’re moving slowly, but surely, into the dark heart of the Forbidden Forest.  
  


*

  
  
Soon it’s time to leave the Path altogether and make our way through the trees toward the unicorn watering hole.  
  
Still employing  _Mobilicorpus,_  but holding Xander close in his arms, Charlie is on edge, and Firenze has his bow up and at the ready. I have my wand held tight and at the ready. Even a few steps off the Path, the Forest has started to seem darker, more menacing. And rightfully so. The Path isn’t even a distant line behind us when we hear the thrashing coming toward us from back the way we came, as if paralleling the Path, but most certainly not on it. That Path is for beings . . . not beasts.  
  
We all three of us freeze, looking at each other with wide eyes. I’m the one who breaks the very brief silence with a curt laugh.  
  
“That’d be your cue to make a run for the pool. I’ll follow after, if I can. In the meantime,” I nod toward the sounds, which are getting closer, and fast. “In the meantime, there’re games afoot.”  
  
“But Harry, mate—”  
  
“Harry Potter, this is most unwise—”  
  
“Just get them there, Firenze. Charlie—shut up and follow the centaur. And take care of Xander.”  
  
I step back toward the Path and slightly east a bit. Toward whatever is after us. I can only hope Charlie, that well-meaning dolt, is following orders. Firenze, at least, has his eyes on the prize, though he may be . . . somewhat concerned about my chances against whatever’s coming.  
  
I smile and, wand ready, as always, march toward doom.  
  
 _Theirs_.  
  


*

  
  
It’s not difficult to follow Firenze through the thicket, slowed down as his horse’s body is by closely hemmed-in trees and bushes. What’s difficult is keeping Xander from being hit with branches and bark.  
  
But Charlie manages. He also manages, despite stumbling quite a few times, to save himself and Xander from disastrous falls.  
  
From back the way they came come roars that sound like nothing so much as those of mountain trolls—more than one or two. Only . . . what would a coterie of  _mountain trolls_  be doing in the Forbidden Forest? Visiting to socialize with their alleged forest cousins?  
  
Charlie snorts and ducks a low-hanging branch, the platinum of Firenze’s hair and tale guiding him on almost like a lumos. He can barely see clearly more than a few meters ahead of him, thanks to the lowering gloom of the Forest’s heart, but he keeps on going, hoping that Firenze can keep them on a relatively straight path to the unicorn pool.  
  
Before too long, Charlie is out of breath, and Firenze is drawing too far ahead. Soon, that platinum hair is lost to the Forest as well, and Charlie slows down—begins to make his way ahead more carefully, too afraid of drawing malevolent attention to himself and Xander to call for Firenze.  
  
In the fast approaching dusk, he stops for a moment in a small clear patch, takes a breath—takes several—and looks around them. He has no idea where Firenze or the Path disappeared to, nor can he even hear the roars of the mountain trolls. All is ominously quiet.  
  
And suddenly, Charlie gets the sudden and unpleasant feeling that he’s being watched again. Not like it was when the centaurs were following them, no. This feeling is decidedly . . . creepy.  
  
And it’s coming from directly above him.  
  
Charlie takes another breath, holds Xander to him as tight as possible, and makes a run for it in the direction he hopes Firenze had gone.  
  
Above him, the trees suddenly come to life with a loud rustle, and large, eight-legged shadows move in. Move  _down_  
  
He can only hope that even without a broom, his old Seeker’s speed and reflexes are enough to let him dodge and run for as long as possible without killing either Xander or himself.  
  
He runs, all attempts at stealth forgotten as he breathlessly calls out: “Firenze! For Merlin’s sake,  _Firenze_!” But he can barely hear himself over the loud, hungry chitters coming from behind and above him. And they’re getting closer. So close, he could swear he feels the brush of bristly hair and hot breath on the back of his neck—  
  
—and suddenly he bursts into an enormous clearing that perfectly frames a small lake or a large pond, at which lounges a platinum glow so fiercely white, it would make snow look grey.  
  
Here, at last, Charlie’s sure footing fails him and he stumbles, twisting his ankle, and pitches forward. At the last moment he lofts Xander’s weightless, bespelled, floating body into the air, even as he falls.  
  
He sees Xander go floating forward toward the beyond-white blur at the banks of the pond, and from behind him hears a cry of frustrated, thwarted hunger. Then there’s a sharp pain in his temple, and all he knows is a black deeper than the heart of the darkest forest.  
  


*

  
  
They’re stupid. Even for mountain trolls. And they’re not the least bit interested in me.  
  
They keep trying, with no success—they’re really quite stupid and easy to toy with . . . it’s very nearly fun—to go after Charlie, Firenze, and Xander. They spare barely a moment to beat at me with their clubs or fell me with their unbelievable stench.  
  
Most spells—Killing Curse aside—bounce off of troll-hide, it’s so bloody tough. They’re so stupid, they’re mostly impervious to Imperius. And the Torture Curse barely tickles their leaden bones.  
  
So what’s a wizard to do when he grows tired of toying with trolls he hasn’t the authorization to kill?  
  
“ _Somnus Profunde_!”  
  
I swish and flick my wand three times in rapid succession—one for each troll—and in short order, I’m prodding the snoring, fallen beasts with my wand to make certain they’re really out. Can’t have them following me to the pool . . . to Xander and Charlie.  
  
They  _are_  really sleeping, even cursory examination proves: snorting out green snot-bubbles and drooling equally disgusting drool. . . .  
  
Why are mountain trolls in the Forbidden Forest? And why do they seem to be hunting  _us_  in particular? Rather, hunting  _Charlie and Xander_?  
  
Charlie and Xander—  
  
I back away from the bodies and when at what I consider a safe enough distance to turn my back, I make a run for the unicorn pool.  
  
It’s a dishearteningly short span before I realize that I’m not running alone. But for the moment, I don’t look up—why, when I know what I’d see, and likely trip over some root or branch in the process?—I simply keep running.  
  
The story of my life.  
  


*

  
  
Charlie groans and rolls onto his back, scrubbing his stubbly face and reaching for Xander’s warm body, to pull it into his arms for intensive cuddling and nuzzling.  
  
“Love, I’ve had the most  _awful_  dream,” he begins, laughing a little, yawning as he stretches and entertains a rather remarkable sense of well-being and well-restedness. Which he finds strange, considering the tenor and tone of that awful dream. About Xander and Jake dying, and the Forbidden Forest, and  _Acromantulas_  chasing them—  
  
Then he’s bolting up and opening his eyes when he can’t feel or find Xander on what turns out to be rocky, sandy ground.  
  
He looks around and finds  _himself_  in a large clearing ringed by trees in the midst of a forest—no, _The Forest_. A quick glance up show a purple, twilight sky, with the faintest, lastest vestiges of sunset stretching out tentative fingers across the dome of heaven.  
  
And in the trees not ten feet away, Charlie can see shadows shifting, and the red glare of clusters of hungry, patient eyes.  
  
“Oh, Merlin,” he breathes, scrambling to his feet and backing away from the treeline as he remembers the trek, the flight from the Acromantulas . . . everything. He even remembers falling, and hitting his head on something—reaches up to touch his temple, expecting his hand to come away bloody . . . but it doesn’t. The skin there is whole. Unbroken. And he doesn’t even have so much as a headache.  
  
 _But I_ know _I hit my head—I stumbled, started to fall, flung Xander from me, then hit my head on a stone or someth—_  
  
“Xander!” His missing wound and the stayed threat in the trees forgotten, Charlie whirls around, looking for Xander, his heart in his throat. Thankfully, he doesn’t have to look far.  
  
Near the sandy bank of the pond, not twenty yards away, Xander floats in place, and at his side . . . at his side, are two unicorns: a mare and a very young colt.  
  
The colt’s nose brushes Xander’s hand, and even from his distance, Charlie can see Xander’s long-lax hand twitch.  
  
“ _Xand_.” With tears in his eyes, Charlie starts toward his husband, only to be suddenly blocked by something that seemingly appears as a flash of intense white in his periphery a split second before it’s in front of him.  
  
It’s a third— _third_!—unicorn. A stallion. And it does  _not_  look happy to see him.  
  
The stallion rears up on his hind legs, dancing back even as Charlie does the same, wary of those deadly-looking, golden hooves. The stallion follows him, trumpeting its anger and distress that there’s not just a human in its territory, but a wizard—notoriously the most troublesome and dangerous sort of human to be had. . . .  
  
But then a gentle neigh sounds from near the banks. From near  _Xander_.  
  
The stallion whinnies once more at Charlie—a threat and warning that even he can understand—huffs and his forefeet touch sandy ground, striking a spark off an errant stone. He crowds close to Charlie, backing him up nearly to the treeline, and those hungry, waiting red eyes. Loud chitters of excitement go up from behind Charlie.  
  
The Acromantulas might be getting at least part of their meal, after all. . . .  
  
“No! Please, don’t!” Charlie begs, holding up his hands, baring his throat as if facing a carnivorous predator, and stopping. This doesn’t faze the unicorn, who merely points his horn right at Charlie’s vulnerable throat. And inches his head forward in small increments, still backing Charlie toward the trees and doom. Charlie swallows. “ _Please_ , I came here seeking your mercy! Your benediction! My husband and child, they’re . . . Cursed. Cursed to die. Only your benediction can save them.”  _Or your blood_ , comes an unfamiliar voice, drifting from deep within Charlie’s mind. And the stallion snorts, as if he’d heard, his horn moving ever closer when Charlie stops as branches brush the back of his torn, dirty coat.  
  
“I know humans, wizards in particular, are probably not your favorite beings on the planet—and that you probably have less reason than most to save the lives of two who’ve wandered, uninvited, into your midst, but I’m begging you.  _Please_. Lift the Curse on them. They’re my life, the people I live for. My reason for  _everything_. Without them, I’d. . . .” Charlie falls silent, hanging his head and shaking it. He dares to presume something aloud the moment it occurs to him. “Please. From one husband and father to another: I haven’t the words to say what they mean to me, other than to say they are my  _life_. Without them, I’m lost.”  
  
For a long moment, Charlie knows nothing but the touch of that horn on the crown of his head, cool and heavy . . . then it’s gone, and the stallion huffs again, irritably.  
  
When Charlie opens his eyes a few seconds later, the stallion has joined the mare and colt near Xander’s still-floating body. But all three are looking at Charlie with their deep, dark, wise eyes.  
  
“Please . . .  _help us_.” He drops to his knees, tears falling as he wraps his arms around himself, suddenly spent, physically and emotionally. “ _Please_.”  
  
The mare neighs again, and nudges the colt almost playfully. It neighs back, then frisks its rather merry way toward Charlie, who is tempted to back away, but for the excited chittering not three feet behind him.  
  
Then the colt is within nosing-distance, and nose it does, at Charlie’s coat and hands. Its nose is cold, its touch light and curious—friendly, even. Charlie instantly feels lighter of heart than he has in over a month, smiling through his tears in wonder and hope.  
  
 _Everything might . . . just_ might _. . . be alright, after all . . . for if such beauty and innocence can still exist, can still_ trust _so open-heartedly when it has no reason to . . . there’s hope for the rest of us,_  he thinks as the colt snorts in his unkempt, overgrown hair.  
  
One hand coming up to settle on the colt’s silky mane—this is good for a whinny that resembles nothing so much as amused laughter—Charlie stands shakily and lets the colt lead him to the banks of the pond, and to Xander.  
  


*

  
  
After casting  _Petrificus Totalus_  at my unwanted companion when it’d dared to descend upon me, I don’t stop to examine the body, just in case it has friends following. And anyway, I haven’t the time for it.  
  
It’s easy enough to continue following the trail of broken branches and disturbed underbrush that Charlie and Firenze have left in their wake. Easy enough to track Firenze’s hoofprints.  
  
At least . . . it’s easy, till those hoofprints end suddenly, and the radius of broken branches widens far more than can be accounted for by one centaur and one man carrying another. Pausing, despite my brain shrilling at me to catch up and  _protect Xander_ , I look around at the unusually widespread devastation . . . then look down.  
  
Upon retrieving Firenze’s bow, rather than stand, and present a larger target, I simply look up.  
  
Dangling, in the very last of the sky’s dusky light, about five meters above me, is a horse-shaped figure entirely cocooned in what appears to be spider-silk.  
  
“Oh, Firenze,” I murmur, hoping against hope he’s still alive—and that some hasty Acromantula hasn’t already begun to feast on him.  
  
But whatever else has happened, he appears to be unattended for the moment. There are no eight-legged shadows nearby, nothing moving in the slightest.  
  
Not that that means much of anything. Acromantulas are nothing, if not clever.  
  
Though it’s entirely possible that they’ve all gone off after Charlie and Xander. Centaur flesh is hardly known far and wide for its tastiness. Hence centaurs living so peaceably in such a dangerous forest: they don’t taste good enough to much of anything to make the danger of hunting them worth it.  
  
It’s possible that the Acromantulas simply incapacitated him to get him out of their way.  
  
And, if they’ve been watching us since just after centaur territory, they would’ve no doubt expected those three mountain trolls to take care of me for them.  
  
I do so hate to disappoint the dears, but. . . .  
  
“ _Extrico_!” I swish and flick, and the web above me begins to unravel. Slowly, but steadily, Firenze is lowered to the ground.  
  


*

  
  
When Charlie reaches Xander, and the other two unicorns, the colt loses interest in Charlie for the waters of the pond, where it splashes in the shallows happily, before bending to drink.  
  
Charlie, meanwhile, is left to gaze at the mare and her stallion. The stallion still eyes him quite warily, but the mare . . . her calm, kind eyes take his measure for long moments before, with a snort, she turns her attention to Xander. More specifically, Xander’s cloak-covered stomach.  
  
She lowers her velvet nose toward Jake’s resting place, and Charlie’s breath catches. . . .  
  


*

  
  
He’s conscious, but quite badly stunned.  
  
His legs wobble when he tries to walk, and he leans heavily on me to do so. His words, when they come, are halting and slurred.  
  
He’d tried to lead the Acromantulas off and away from Charlie and Xander. And it’d worked for a bit. But unfortunately he’d underestimated their cleverness, for the Acromantulas had merely been letting him lead  _himself_  further and further away from Xander and Charlie, who, it became apparent, were their main target.  
  
“I do not know,” he says finally, when I ask him how many he thinks there might be in this hunting party. His blue eyes meet mine somberly. “More than three, but fewer than ten.”  
  
I swear and stop for breath—centaurs certainly aren’t made of fairy-dust—along the trail of destruction left by Charlie and Xander’s followers. Firenze’s trail, luckily for the centaur, hadn’t deviated terribly far from Charlie’s. Hadn’t had a  _chance_  to before he was stunned.  
  
That presents a problem. I need to catch up to those Acromantulas before they get to Charlie and Xander, but I can’t do that with Firenze. And yet there’s no question of me leaving him alone in this state, and to the tender mercies of whatever nightmares live in the heart of the Forest.  
  
But Xander. . . .  
  
“I see your mind is far hence. Leave me here to recover, Harry Potter, and follow your heart,” Firenze says softly, sounding slightly, but still not markedly better. I shake my head.  
  
“I don’t leave a fallen man behind. Or centaur.”  
  
“Even in my current state, I am more able to protect myself against the evils of the Forest than is Charlie Weasley. And with a vulnerable mate and child to worry about, no less.” Firenze adds serenely. I snort.  
  
“You don’t get left behind. That’s not an option. But perhaps . . . is it likely, from the way Charlie appears to have taken them, that he and Xander have  _already_  reached the unicorn pool? And if so, would they be safe there?” I ask, and Firenze tilts his head at that considering angle.  
  
“If they have reached it and the unicorns linger there, they would be safe. But only if the unicorns linger,” he says plainly. Then he closes his eyes for a moment and takes a deep breath. He lets it out slowly and blinks at me. “But Xander Weasley is still alive, if not Charles Weasley.”  
  
My heart starts to trip-hammer in my chest even as tension flows out of me like water out of a sieve. “How . . . how do you know, Firenze?”  
  
He smiles just a little. It’s lopsided, due to the effects of the Acromantula toxin. “Because my being still resounds with the news of the Bright Child’s coming. If the Child yet lives, the father lives, also.”  
  
Grinning, now, I straighten up, get Firenze’s arm back over my shoulder and take us off the trail of destruction, which no doubt leads to the unicorn pool, and Xander, and before that, a herd of hungry Acromantulas.  
  
“Where are we going, Harry Potter?” Firenze asks as we make our way what I can only hope is north by north-east.  
  
“Firenze, old friend . . . we’re taking the long way ‘round.”  
  


*

  
  
_Xander watches, his breath held, one hand on his stomach, the other holding Jake’s tiny, warm hand, as the unicorn mare brushes his corporeal body’s stomach with her nose. . . .  
  
“Is that it? Is that the benediction?” he breathes, and can sense the same question on Charlie’s lips. At his side, just as incorporeal as his father, Jake makes an impatient sound.  
  
“No,” he says ruefully. “The benediction requires a touch from the horn. The horn is the center of their power. _ This _is just foolish time-wasting.”  
  
Jake sounds very put-out—at least as put-out as Xander _ should _feel, but doesn’t.  
  
And, as if somehow sensing them—or at least Jake, the unicorn mare’s head swings in Jake’s direction, her dark eyes unerringly settling on him.  
  
Charlie—confused and worried—follows her gaze, but of course sees nothing. As he hasn’t since the morning nearly two weeks ago Xander had yelled himself hoarse (despite Jake’s advice against doing such a pointless thing) trying to wake his husband . . . said husband still spooned unknowingly to Xander’s vacant, comatose body.  
  
(The only way Charlie would have been able to see his husband’s and son’s shades, would be if he was clairvoyant, or if they’d died and become fully ghosts. So that, at least was somewhat reassuring: they were still alive, in a manner of speaking.)  
  
The mare steps almost daintily around Xander’s corporeal body and approaches Jake, whose little hand tightens around Xander’s fingers. When Xander looks down at the boy, his eyes are widened in what is obviously fear. He even starts to back away . . . but Xander holds him firm.  
  
“Don’t worry, little man. She’s one of the good guys, remember?”  
  
But Jake is shaking his head. “I don’t . . . I don’t like her getting so close to me.”  
  
“Kiddo, she already rubbed her nose against us . . . I think if something bad were going to happen, it would’ve. Relax.” Xander smiles his most reassuring smile, but Jake’s still staring at the approaching unicorn with something like terror.  
  
Finally, with one strong yank, he’s freed his hand from Xander’s, but it’s too late. The mare has closed the distance between them and is lowering her horn to Jake’s chest. It passes through Jake, pausing right where his heart would be were he corporeal.  
  
Instantly, there’s a flash of white light so bright, Xander’s eyelids aren’t remotely enough to block it.  
  
He hisses, bringing his arm up to cover his eyes, but the light has already winked out, leaving the momentarily lit-up clearing and pool dark once more. Xander blinks repeatedly to clear his vision, and slowly but surely sees both clearing and pond, husband and unicorns—the mare’s returned to her spot next to Xander, but her eyes are still on Jake.  
  
Jake—  
  
Xander turns to comfort his son, only to find him gone. In his place stands a tall, imposing figure swaddled in unrelieved black. Lank, greasy black hair hangs past stiff, straight shoulders, and curtains a sallow face that’s all sharp, stark angles, ungenerous mouth, and long, hooked nose. Familiar dark eyes stare disbelievingly down at long, precise hands that are faintly stained several diferent colors, as if their owner’s spent a lifetime working with dyes or something.  
  
Then, reluctantly leaving those hands, the dark eyes—as shining and fathomless as the pool Xander’s corporeal body floats next to—meet Xander’s, and . . . he _ cringes _, this unfamiliar man with the familiar eyes. Cringes and glances away. Looks as if he wishes the Earth would swallow him whole.  
  
Xander reaches out, taking a step forward.  
  
“Don’t, Xander,” the man warns in a low, sonorous voice, as soft and despairing as a skein of purple velvet. “Come no closer, I warn you. It will do neither of us any good.”  
  
“Who _ are _you?” Xander asks even as part of him makes an intuitive leap and connects those eyes and that precise, yet slightly antiquated way of speaking with recent—very recent--experience. “Are you . . . are you_ Jake _? Are you my son?”  
  
The sallow-dark man risks a glance at Xander’s face, his own a rictus of shame, hurt, and resignation. He nods almost unwillingly, his mouth twisting into an unlovely grimace of a smile.  
  
“I would have been, had _ this _not happened, I suppose,” he murmurs in that low voice, gesturing at himself. Then his posture straightens out till he stands at a perfect ninety degree angle from the ground, his pride drawn up and around him like a nearly visible garment. Like a robe, perhaps.  
  
Xander, meanwhile, has been approaching this man who would be his son. He stops when they are but several feet apart, and asks: “Who are you—_ were _you—whatever? Who am I looking at, now?”  
  
The man’s mouth twists again, as if he’s just eaten a whole lemon . . . peel and all.  
  
“My name,” he begins slowly, also rather unwillingly, but not without a certain stilted pride, “was Severus Snape, and I was Cursed, with my . . . former master’s last breath, to eternal death. And now, so are you.”_  
  


*

  
  
Several times, as we make our way around the distant pool, I have to  _Stupefy_  lone Acromantulas. Sentries, I imagine.  
  
It’s rather harrowing that somethings so large can also be so deadly-quiet when they choose. Not, thankfully, quiet enough for Firenze’s keen senses of hearing and smell.  
  
When we’ve agreed that it’s time to turn west again, we make our way toward the pool, rather than continue to run parallel to it. The going is slow, but Firenze always answers in the affirmative when I ask if Xander’s still alive.  
  
Yet as the stars come out, it becomes obvious that he’s starting to fade, his steps growing clumsy and heavy, his weight depending on me more and more. The effects of Acromantula venom on centaurs hasn’t been documented, but Firenze, despite the return of his mental faculties, isn’t getting any better physically. I find myself worrying about something other than Xander for the first time in . . . months. . . .  
  
As the moon begins to rise, finally, we reach the edges of a clearing that opens onto a large pond.  
  
The unicorn pool.  
  
“This . . . is the place we seek,” Firenze says unnecessarily, his breathing labored. I halt us and lean him against a tree then peer out into the clearing.  
  
The unicorns are easy to spot, their telltale white hides glowing like stars fallen to Earth. They’re on the other side of the pool from us, along with Charlie and a still floating, still, apparently, unconscious Xander.  
  
“Is it . . . is it safe for us to go over there, or would it be better for us to wait here. . . ?” I ask Firenze. He sighs.  
  
“Better manners . . . to wait for their business . . . to be concluded . . . out of respect. They expect . . . nothing less. . . .”  
  
I blink. “You mean they know we’re here?”  
  
“Of course.”  
  
“Huh.” I take a few steps back into the trees, nonetheless, till I draw even with Firenze, once more. “And how will we know when business is concluded?”  
  
Firenze closes his eyes and doesn’t answer for so long, I think he’s fallen asleep. But then he speaks: “We’ll know when the unicorns leave.”  
  
Now, I’m frowning. And with good reason. “But once they leave, won’t the Acromantulas swarm that side of the clearing?”  
  
Firenze nods and opens his eyes. They glow softly in the mirk of the trees. “Yes, they will, Harry Potter.”  
  
“ _Fuck_.”  
  
“Indeed.”  
  


*

  
  
“Severus Snape _?”  
  
The man nods once, warily, and Xander laughs a little. “I know who you are from _ Hogwarts: A History _! And from my friend, Harry Potter.”  
  
“Yes,” the man—Severus—hisses, his eyes narrowing. He crosses his arms. “And I’m certain both book and wizard had such laudatory things to say about me, too.”  
  
“The book said that you were complicated and brave . . . Harry said pretty much the same thing,” Xander says, smiling a little at the look of surprise on Severus’ face. For a moment, he looks like the child Xander will always see him as.  
  
“Yes, well.” Severus sniffs and his posture loosens just a tad. “That’s more generous than I expected from either, considering.”  
  
“Considering . . . what? That you spent years of your life putting that life at risk to help save the world from doppleganger dearest? Which you ultimately had a large hand in doing?” Xander’s eyebrows shoot up and he crosses his own arms. Severus eyes him, still warily, but less than he had just two minutes ago.  
  
“I came to my senses rather late in the game, and spent the rest of my life making up for a series of stupid mistakes I made when I was a wounded, self-pitying brat.” Severus tosses his greasy hair a little. “I was no hero. I was just as scared and desperate as everyone else who fought in that damned War, no matter what side they were on.”  
  
“I don’t think it’s fearlessness that makes a hero, but  _action in the face of fear_ ,” Xander says, smiling a little when Severus rolls his eyes. “Trust me, little man, I know from heroes—been around ‘em most of my life—and Severus Snape? Is a hero.”  
  
“Hardly.” Beat. “And I’m not your _little man _, as has been pointed out by our horned acquaintance.”  
  
Severus casts a rather murderous glance at the mare, who’s once more nosing Xander’s corporeal stomach. “As you can see, I am a dead, soul-sullied wizard of ambiguous morals, who’s approaching two times your age. I am also, plainly put, a bastard and a schemer.”  
  
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.” Xander grins and Severus scowls forbiddingly.  
  
“Dunderhead!” he seethes, turning away, crossing his arms once more like a child throwing a tantrum. “Sentimental, soft-brained,  _stubborn_ —”  
  
And with each sibilant insult, Xander is stepping closer and closer, until he can lay a hand on Severus’ bony shoulder, at which point the man immediately stops his ranting and goes statue still.  
  
“Whoever you are, whoever you’ve _been _,” Xander says tenderly, his voice cracking just a little. “Whatever you think of yourself, you’ll always be my boy. My little man. My Jakob.”  
  
And to that, he gets no response. At least not for the better part of a minute.  
  
Then, Severus’ long, narrow body is wracked by a shiver so great, it’d probably show up on the Richter Scale.  
  
“I chose you because I’d hoped that, you being a copy of Riddle, might somehow be able to nullify the bastard’s Curse on me. I chose you, waited for my moment, and put the words of that fertility spell in Charles’ mouth. _ I _, it was, who truly . . . got you up the spout, so to speak. I_ used _you, Xander. Even though I knew that if the Curse_ wasn’t _nullified because you were, for all intents and purposes, Tom Riddle, that I’d be consigning_ you _to death, as well. And Charles to a life of grief and loneliness.” Severus glances over his shoulder, but not quite at Xander. His laugh, when it comes, is self-mocking and bitter. “I, it was, who did all that, to gain a second chance I doubt I’ve earned. At any and all costs._ That _is who your . . . little man is._ That _is the child you and Charles have loved so dearly.”  
  
Xander sighs, and squeezes Severus’ shoulder. “Huh. Well. It’s not the most warm and fuzzy of beginnings, but you know what? I _ love _you, anyway, Severus, or Jake, or whoever you wanna be. So, bastardly old wizard with askew morals and a tendency to scheme and snark? Cool beans! I’ll take what I can get!”  
  
And with that, Xander slides his arms around the stiff figure in front of him, resting his head against Severus’ nape, greasy hair tickling his face.  
  
“You—” Severus has another Richter Scale shiver, but doesn’t try to get free of Xander’s arms. “I _ used _you, you dolt!”  
  
“Yes, you did.” Xander can smell the ingredients of hundreds of potions in Severus’ hair and robe. He wonders if, when he’s older, and been at Hogwarts for a year or two, Jake will smell of the same things. “But I still love you.”  
  
“I’m _ still _using you as we speak!”  
  
“Yeah . . . and for at least the next eighteen years, I guess. Boy, I’ll bet you’re _ expensive _, too. All those potions ingredients, and stuff. . . .”  
  
Severus turns in Xander’s arms, but still doesn’t free himself. When he can look down into Xander’s eyes, his own are shining with guilt and resignation. And possibly tears. “Are you so desperate for a child that you would accept even the most unsuitable candidate as your own?”  
  
Xander grins again. “Define ‘unsuitable,’” he says, and Severus’ gapes at him for a moment, clearly nonplussed, a word for which Xander’s never had a frame of reference until now.  
  
Finally, Severus sighs, closing his eyes on the emotions that lie there, to strong to be hidden. “Xander . . . in a very short amount of time, now, I will be born, and it is likely at least one of us will die in the process.”  
  
Xander reaches up and caresses Severus’ face, letting his hand rest on one high cheekbone. This occasions a third Richter Scale shiver. “Hush, hon . . . the unicorns—”  
  
“Are  _not_  omnipotent.” Severus opens his eyes again and leans his forehead against Xander’s for long moments before looking back over at the unicorns with a formidable frown. “She’s got the power to perhaps shift the Curse . . . like taking a hat off of one person and placing it on someone else’s head . . . but not the power to lift it. This Curse is Bendable, yes, but truly_Unbreakable _. At least, that’s what I gather from all her sniffing and sad looks.”  
  
Frowning, too, Xander glances at the unicorns surrounding his floating body. All three of them are looking toward him and Severus gravely, but none more gravely than the mare, who nods once, as if in agreement with what was said then whinnies. Softly. Charlie, still out of the loop, looks from Xander’s body, to the unicorns, to the seemingly empty space where Xander and Severus stand.  
  
“Oh,” Xander says softly, his eyes filling with tears as he looks back at Severus, who’s still staring at the unicorns. “_ Oh. _”  
  
“Yes, _ oh _,” Severus sighs, turning that grimace of a smile on Xander. “But there’re none still strutting on the skin of this terrible world that I’d shift such a Curse to. None to die in my stead. It would appear that Riddle’s final Curse was quite effective.” He snorts. “ At any rate, the unicorn mare is more than powerful enough to save you, you have only to say the word and—”  
  
“Save my son, please,” Xander says to the unicorn, but looking Severus in his dark, beloved eyes. The instant shock in them is writ so large, it’s almost funny. Xander smiles a little, shrugging haplessly. “Transfer the Curse to from him, to me. Let him be born healthy and with every chance at the kind of life he deserves—”  
  
“_ No! _” Severus begins, grasping Xander’s arms and holding him close, staring down into his eyes with the kind of rage that’d quelled brasher men than Xander Weasley. “You_ fool _! What’ve you done?!”  
  
“Watch your mouth, young man!” Xander laughs at the expression on Severus’ face, and on that laugh, Xander’s strength leaves him, to be replaced by fear, yes, but mostly relief that . . . his little man is finally, finally _ safe _.  
  
With the going of that strength, Xander’s quite glad of Severus’ strong hands holding him up. Even as Severus shakes him angrily, sputtering at him and trying to come up with insults that seem to escape him. Even as desperate tears run down a face that Xander senses has rarely seen their like.  
  
“Don’t cry, Severus. It’ll be alright,” Xander says, rolling his suddenly blurry gaze toward the unicorns once more. To the mare, who watches him with her wise, dark eyes. He smiles and nods, and she lowers her head, till the very tip of her horn touches corporeal-Xander’s stomach. . . .  
  
And instantly, the world is filled with bright light that cleanses even as it obliterates. . . .  
  
Even as something dark and vise-like settles around Xander’s heart and begins to squeeze._  
  


*

  
  
For eternal minutes, the mare sniffs at and walks around Xander’s unconscious body, until Charlie’s ready to scream in frustration.  
  
 _How,_  he wonders, will I even know a benediction when I see it? If _I see it?_  
  
But despite his impatience and worry, he simply stands there, as humbly and quietly as he may, holding Xander’s hand.  
  
Finally, the mare stops where she’d initially been, and, after a moment of staring off into space—yet again . . . Charlie doesn’t even follow her gaze this time, knowing there’s nothing there that _he_  can see—she lowers her head, and instead of her nose, touches Xander’s stomach with her horn.  
  
For several long moments, there’s a soft white radiance around Xander’s stomach that only slowly dissipates, and with its dissipation, with the removal of the horn, Xander takes a sudden deep breath and moans his whiny little don’t-wanna-wake-up moan.  
  
 _That was a benediction, alright,_  Charlie barks a startled, wondering laugh and raises Xander’s hand to his lips to kiss it.  
  
“Charlie? Baby?” Xander sighs, stretching in mid-air, then flailing and yelping as his eyes open. Before his poor, equally-startled husband can say aught else,  _Charlie’s_  saying  _Finite_ , and catching Xander in his arms, kissing him silent.  
  
“Xand, Xand,” he breathes between kisses and around a throat full of tears, his own breath hitching and catching. “Oh, love!”  
  
“Charlie—why was I  _floating_? What’s going on? Where are we? Are those  _unicorns_?”  
  
Charlie laughs and follows Xander’s awed gaze to the unicorns who, without a glance back, disappear among the trees some yards distant and to the south of the pool. “Yes, love.  _those_  are, indeed, unicorns!” He kisses a still-disoriented and confused Xander again, hard and uncoordinated, laughing and crying at the same time, crushing his love to him for a few moments before remembering his pregnant state and loosening his embrace.  
  
Xander kisses him back for a few seconds before breaking it suddenly, crumpling around his stomach in obvious pain. Pain that makes him hiss and keen and gasp. Makes tears spring to the eyes that meet Charlie’s in fear and worry.  
  
“Xand? What—?” Charlie starts, but he already knows. What else could it be, on this night, after the benediction?  
  
“Oh, God, oh, Charlie . . . I think the baby is coming. . . .” then Xander’s keening again, loud and long, clutching his stomach as a horrified Charlie looks on in helpless shock.  
  
And so they don’t even notice that the excited chitters coming from the trees behind them grow alarmingly  _closer_.


	30. The Battle of the Forbidden Forest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At last, Xander is in labor . . . in the Forbidden Forest. Whether he survives long enough to give birth—whether he, Charlie, Harry, and Firenze, lost in the heart of the Forest as they are, make it out alive—is very much up in the air.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes/Warnings: Canon compliant for both ‘verses. M-Preg. Major character death. Set post-Chosen by about eleven years, and post DH/e by ten years (I fiddled with timelines a bit). Spoilers for BtVS “Chosen” and DH/e.  
> Disclaimer: They made me do it!

  
Before the pain of the contraction passes—and it’s really the worst thing he’s ever felt, bringing with it the urge to  _push_  even though that urge would likely kill Xander, who has nowhere to push the baby  _too_ —Xander’s attention is snared by motion from the corner of his eye, over Charlie’s shoulder.  
  
“Whatthefuck’rethose?!” he gasps out around the agony, which makes speaking quite difficult, especially when all Xander wants to do is scream. Mostly because of the pain, but in large part because of the horde of  _giant-ass fucking spiders_  racing toward them from under the trees.  
  
Charlie glances over his shoulder then does a double-take.  
  
“ _Motherfucker_ ,” he breathes, and Xander barks a brief, startled laugh.  _Oh, yeah, I’m rubbing off on him._  
  
Then they’re both reaching for their wands—only Charlie actually finds his, and starts firing spells—mostly  _Stupefy_ s—at the spiders approaching them tentatively, but with increasing fearlessness. About half the time, Charlie misses due to the spiders’ dodging and ducking. They seem to be damnably fast.  
  
 _We’re going to die here, wherever here is, if we don’t get some kinda help,_  Xander thinks desperately. The contraction, meanwhile, has thankfully begun to pass, and he struggles to his wobbly legs, and—  
  
 _Wait a minute . . . wobbly legs?_  he thinks, as he watches Charlie fell a spider with a complicated swish-and-flick, and a shouted spell that’s literally:  _Ad Nauseam, Ad Infinitum!_  
  
And the spider stops dead in its tracks and begins vomiting. A  _lot_. And it doesn’t stop.  
  
The bulk of the spiders pause to watch their comrade and gauge their own chances of getting hit with such a jinx.  
  
“C’mon, lads! I brought enough for everyone!” Charlie calls, waving his wand like a man with a rapier. The spiders actually take several steps back.  
  
Stepping around Charlie so that they’re side by side—as always—Xander holds up his hand and says: “ _Accio_  Xander’s wand!”  
  
There’s an immediate rustling in the cloak Xander’s wearing, and a second later, his wand flies out of its folds and into Xander’s hands.  
  
 _Okay, then_ , he thinks, grinning and blessing Charlie’s—he assumes—foresight.  _Let’s do some damage!_  
  
The spiders are approaching again, slowly, but with determination, leaving their still-puking brother behind.  
  
Xander aims at the closest one and swishes and flicks just like George had taught him on Christmas Eve (“Consider it an early Christmas present, Xand,” he’d said, wearing his mischievious grin. “Something to keep Charlie from getting too frisky when you’re not in the mood.” And here, Charlie, from across the room, had called: “Oi!”) and yells:  _Locomotor Wobbly_!  
  
And by luck or by good aim, that first spider’s legs weeble and wobble, and the fucker goes _down_.  
  
“Damned fine shot, love!  _Stupefy_!” Charlie hurls his curse at the next spider.  
  
“I please to aim,” Xander retorts. “ _Locomotor Wobbly!_ ”  
  
That one, unfortunately, misses the spider that’s breaking off from the horde in an attempt to circle around them, and Xander swears, getting ready to fire another jinx. But that awful cramping sensation starts around his midsection again, discomfort turning swiftly into agony, and he groans, going to his knees, wand falling to the ground.  
  
“Xand!” Charlie stops firing curses to go to one knee and take Xander in his arms. “Oh, love—”  
  
“I’m fine, I’m fine, just—don’t stop cursing those spiders!” Xander grits out as pain washes over him in increasingly large waves. The urge to push is so seductive and strong, he actually starts to before remembering he has no way to expel the impatient child. That just as magic put Jake in him, magic is the only thing to get him out.  
  
 _Oh, boy, Jake, I love you, but your sense of timing is for the birds._  He shrugs a still frantic Charlie off him. “I’ll be  _fine_ , babe. Unless we get eaten by giant fucking spiders! Keep  _fighting_!”  
  
And then Xander’s gone with the pain for moments that feel like eternities, crumpling him to the ground—ironically in fetal position—and stretching out till they threaten to erase him.  
  
When agony finally lets him out of its grip and the urge to push has lessened again, Xander opens his eyes and sees eight red ones looking back down at him.  
  


*

  
  
Charlie had forgotten that Acromantulas, among many other talents, have a talent for  _leaping._  
  
They’re getting closer, en masse, but from the back of their ranks, one large Acromantula launches itself over its comrades to land directly in front of Charlie, startling him into stumbling backwards and falling. His wrist hits the ground hard enough that his wand goes flying, and then the Acromantula’s looming over him, and Charlie feels a sharp pain in his shoulder that makes him cry out before a sensation of numbness begins to spread rapidly from his shoulder, to the rest of him.  
  
“ _Accio_ —” he starts to say . . . and then his tongue stops working.  
  
The Acromantula above him chitters—almost smugly—then looks to Charlie’s left.  
  
Toward Xander, who’s still moaning . . . still, temporarily, helpless.  
  
 _No!_  Charlie tries to scream, but is unable to—unable to do more than twitch and cudgel his nonresponsive body into shivering.  _You bastard—leave him alone!_  
  
Charlie manages a grunt that even he can barely hear, despair swallowing him in waves even as he continues to fight his own paralyzed body. Then, from the direction of the pool, he hears a familiar voice yelling:  
  
“ _Stupefy!_ ”  
  


*

  
  
The Acromantulas are coming, and fast.  
  
I turn to Firenze, thinking quickly. “Can you run?” I ask the sickly-looking centaur, who smiles limply.  
  
“I fear not.”  
  
“But can you still  _fire_? Accurately?”  
  
Firenze, shaking, reaches back into his quiver and unshoulders his bow, slowly, slowly, slowly. He notches an arrow with hands that tremor. But his smile is game and brave.  
  
“I shall try, Harry Potter.”  
  
He’s not doing good at all and I feel more than a little guilty. It’s . . . worrying, to say the least, that the damn venom’s been in him so long without him being treated. But with my damn instinct shrilling at me that Xander and Charlie are about to be overwhelmed, it’s . . . enough that I’ve got him at my back and willing to fight.  
  
“Then start picking off the bastards that get close to them. I’ll handle the rest,” I say, and dash out of the trees, wand waving and  _Separo_  on my lips.  
  
Ahead of me, the suddenly disturbed waters of the pool begin to part, and by the time I reach the sandy, stony bank, I’ve already hurled  _Stupefy_  at the Acromantula rearing up over Xander. Around me, on the newly-revealed ground, dying fish flip and flop, and I try to dodge them, not wanting to slip and fall.  
  
Another Acromantula leaps toward Xander and Charlie, but falls, mid-leap, on one of its friends, an arrow in one of its eyes.  
  
 _Bless you, Firenze!_  
  
“ _Repello Acromantulum!_ ”  
  


*

  
  
“ _Accio_  Xander’s wand,” Xander pants then crawls toward Charlie, who’s not moving.  
  
“Baby?” Xander shakes Charlie’s shoulder, and upon getting no response, waves a hand over Charlie’s open, but blank eyes. “Charlie!”  
  
He places two fingers against Charlie’s throat for a pulse—another lesson learned in Sunnydale and put to frequent use—and gets a thready, slow pulse that he doesn’t like one bit. But at least Charlie’s alive . . . at least—  
  
“ _Repello Acromantulum_! Are you alright?”  
  
Startled, Xander finds himself goggling up at a panting, disheveled Harry Potter.  
  
“I—I—the baby’s coming.  _Fast_ ,” Xander says numbly, looking back down at Charlie and cupping Charlie’s cool, clammy cheek in his hand. “And I think one of those things bit Charlie, or something, because he’s not moving but he’s still breathing—and—and—” he doesn’t know what else to say, and looks up at Harry again through sudden tears. The grim, but almost anticipatory look on Harry’s face— _he’s enjoying this . . . the spell-casting, the fighting, the derring-do . . . this is_ fun _for him. He’s_ alive _right now, more than I’ve ever seen him_ —softens, grows concerned as he looks Xander over.  
  
“Don’t worry. He’ll be alright. We’ll get through this— _Stupefy!_!  _Stupefy_!” Harry yells, swishing and flicking faster than Xander’s eye can follow. “ _Stupefy_! Can you walk?”  
  
“Not far . . . the contractions are pretty close together.”  
  
“Fuck—in that case, can you  _run_?”  
  
Xander almost laughs in Harry’s face. “I’m not going anywhere without Charlie.”  
  
Harry rolls his eyes. “I’m not asking you to— _Relashio!_ ”  
  
Sparks fly out of Harry’s wand, so bright and hot, Xander covers his eyes, and tries to shield Charlie’s body with his own. The chittering of the spiders grows loud and wary and when Xander risks a peek at them, they’re backing up as Harry moves toward them, wand still throwing off those big, bright sparks.  
  
“I need you to run, now, Xander—cross the pool where I’ve parted it, and go toward the opposite treeline. Firenze—a centaur and a friend—will be there.”  
  
Xander shakes his head. “No. I’m not leaving Char—”  
  
“ _RELASHIO!_  “ Harry yells again and an even larger, brighter, hotter shower of sparks shoots from his wand. The spiders fairly scream, scrambling back toward the trees from which they’d come—except for the ones that’d been cursed into immobility, puking, and wobbly legs, and a few that’d been . . . felled by arrows.  
  
 _Harry’s centaur friend?_  
  
Then Harry’s backing toward Xander and Charlie again. When he draws even with them, he turns to Charlie quickly, swishes and flicks. “ _Mobilicorpus!_ ”  
  
And Charlie’s body begins to rise from under Xander’s own shielding one. Gaping, Xander merely watches in shock for a moment.  
  
“ _Run_!” Harry exclaims, turning himself and Charlie to face the pool, but waving Xander ahead of them frantically.  
  
Scrambling quickly to his feet, Xander does just that—though it’s really more of a fast waddle.  
  
And, as they run between two walls of water, at least eight feet high—Xander doesn’t even take the time to be surprised, just takes it for granted that Harry Potter just pulled a  _Moses_ —Xander can only hope that the waddle is fast enough, because the spiders, when he glances behind them, past Charlie’s large, floating body and Harry’s smaller one, are coming once more.  
  


*

  
  
“Shit! Shit! Shit!” We’re not moving fast enough. Not nearly.  
  
My plan  _had_  been to end the spell on the pool as we ran, closing the way behind us . . . but at the rate we were going, we’d wind up caught in the crash of water and likely drown trying to survive that crash.  
  
“Xander, can you run faster?” I pant, and ahead of me, Xander laughs briefly, panting too.  
  
“You’re lucky I’m running at— _oh, fuck!_ ” he breathes, stopping and crumpling to his knees on the fishy ground, hands on his stomach.  
  
“Shit!” I glance behind us. The Acromantulas have paused at the pool, at the path between them created by  _Separo_. They’re chittering fearfully, but hurriedly between one another. Finally, one of them tests the way with a bristly, long foreleg.  
  
When it’s not immediately drowned or the leg even wetted, it quickly makes its way forward.  
  
It’s time for us—for  _all_  of us—to get out of here. I’d been hoping to avoid this until we were all somewhere safe, where I could concentrate better, so as not to splinch the bloody hell out of us, but the Acromantulas are getting closer and Xander’s clearly in a bad way, so . . . there’s nothing for it but to remember the three D’s of Apparition, and hope for the best.  
  
“Destination, determination, deliberation,” I mutter as I draw even with Xander, and kneel at his side, placing one hand on his shoulder and reaching up to grasp Charlie’s hand. I picture the infirmary at Hogwarts as clearly as I can—and I’m quite familiar with it, from a goodly portion of my childhood spent recovering there or visiting recovering friends—and bend all my mind and heart on wanting to be there. Right in the middle of the infirmary, in the most open area, between all the beds.  
  
Merlin protect us from being splinched—  
  
“ _Apparate!_ ”  
  


*

  
  
When agony finishes flattening Xander, he opens tear-blurred eyes to find himself . . . not in the middle of a parted pool.  
  
In fact, as he wipes his eyes and sits up, the place he’s in looks more like a hospital ward . . . but different from St. Mungo’s. Smaller and somehow friendlier. And vaguely familiar, too. . . .  
  
Next to him, kneels Harry Potter, looking much worse for wear, both drained and unsteady, but his fierce green eyes are brilliant as they meet Xander’s.  
  
“Alright there, Xander?”  
  
Xander glances around the hospital ward, and up—Charlie floats serenely above them—then back at Harry. Smiling through a faceful of tears, he reaches out and pulls Harry to him by the lapels of his robe, kissing him on the mouth with a loud  _smack!_  
  
“Better than alright, Harry Potter! I’m  _alive—we’re_ alive!” he says, laughing as he gazes into a gobstruck Harry’s eyes. Harry blinks several times and takes a deep breath before reaching out to brush his fingers across Xander’s cheek, through tear-tracks. Then he cups Xander’s face in his hands and is leaning in to kiss Xander . . . hard for the first few seconds, then softening into something sweeter and desperate . . . yearning.  
  
Startled, Xander doesn’t even know how to respond at first—it’s nothing like being kissed by Charlie, but not  _bad_  by any lights . . . just . . . different—and by the time he realizes he should be pulling away,  _not responding_ , Harry’s already done so, and removed his hands, his eyes darting everywhere but at Xander.  
  
Meanwhile Xander’s hand has flown to his mouth, and his eyes are saucers as he stares at Harry.  
  
“Harry,” he begins lowly, brow furrowing in confusion and question. “What—?”  
  
“I, er . . . I have to get back to the pool for Firenze before I can’t,” Harry interrupts Xander to say, getting shakily to his feet with a grunt. “ _Apparate!_ ”  
  
And with that, he’s gone, leaving Xander to puzzle over what just happened . . . then to get to his own feet and call for help just as another contraction starts.  
  


*

  
  
By the time I get Firenze, deal with the last of the Acromantulas, and put the pool back to rights—wouldn’t do to piss off a bunch of unicorns by leaving drowned Acromantulas in their drinking pool. And it’s just bad manners, too—back to the Hogwarts infirmary, I can barely stand, as spent as I am, physically and magically. But between the two of us, leaning on each other, we stagger toward the sounds of pained groans, and unhappy little screams.  
  
“The Bright Child comes,” Firenze murmurs in low, awed tones as we get to the end of the otherwise empty ward.  
  
In the penultimate bed, closer to the door, lays Charlie Weasley, already in a hospital gown, looking pale, but not so unnaturally still. His eyes are closed and his breathing has returned to something approaching normal.  
  
In the last bed lays Xander Weasley, and he’s attended by no less than three people: Poppy Pomfrey, another nurse who has the evening rotation in the Hogwarts infirmary, and a tall, portly wizard in green robes, with a formidable mustache, who can only be Xander’s Medi-wizard, Romare Braden.  
  
His hands are on Xander’s stomach, which is visibly contracting and . . . moving as the child within tries to find its way out.  
  
Medi-wizard Braden doesn’t look happy.  
  
“ . . . the stress of being awake  _and_  using magic has left him, unfortunately, too weak for us to safely  _Apparate_  him to somewhere as far as St. Mungo’s. Merlin, it’s left him too weak to safely deliver no matter where we are, damnit!” Braden’s pale brown eyes swing to me and Firenze. “Was it your idea to take a man at the end of a high-risk pregnancy into the Forbidden Forest and awaken him from the coma that was the only thing keeping him and his unborn child healthy?”  
  
I serve Braden’s glare right back at him—it might be more effective if I weren’t swaying, and the room wasn’t spinning, but  _c’est la vie._  “Not  _my_  idea. But I went along with it, yes. He and the child were capital-C Cursed. We needed the benediction of a unicorn and, by Merlin, we  _got it_.”  
  
Braden frowns. “In all our examinations of Xander and Jakob we didn’t pick up on any Curses of any kind—”  
  
“And you wouldn’t have.” I say firmly, forbiddingly. “This is nothing you were trained to deal with. Nothing even most aurors are trained to deal with.”  
  
“But—”  
  
“Listen, Medi-wizard Braden, we’re treading quite close to Ministry classified territory, right now, and when we have more important matters to deal with. Just believe me when I say that what was done was necessary for their survival.” I let go of Firenze, and stagger toward Xander, shouldering my way past the late-shift nurse, to take his hand. As the contraction passes, Xander looks up at me with bright, weary eyes, and tries to smile.  
  
“Don’t tell anyone, but . . . I’m scared,” he says quietly. I reach out and brush my fingers along his cheek, forcing away the memory of what it’d felt like to kiss him. Now is most definitely  _not_ the time, even if Xander’s leaning into my touch as if. . . .  
  
“It’ll be alright. We’ve got the benediction of a unicorn on our side,” I say softly, leaning down to kiss his damp forehead. “Plus, you’ve survived the Forbidden Forest. You can do  _anything_.”  
  
Xander chuckles weakly. “I wasn’t even  _awake_  for any of it, except for the spidery parts. Which was fun, by the way. We should do that more often.”  
  
“Well, if you and Charlie are free next Satruday, I’m certain Firenze and I can clear our schedules. . . .”  
  
Another weak chuckle that I join him in, and he licks his bitten, cracked lips—but how soft and gentle they’d felt against my own, how warm and supple . . . how bittersweet and tear-salty . . . _perfect_ —his eyes going to the cubicle where Charlie lays.  
  
“They said Charlie’ll be okay. That they gave him a potion for Acker—Ackra—giant spider venom.” Xander sighs and closes his eyes for a few moments. When he opens them, they’re somber and very, very intent. “Promise me that you’ll look after them. You know . . . if something goes wrong.”  
  
“ _Nothing_  will go wrong,” I say firmly, squeezing his hand. He squeezes back and smiles.  
  
“Of course, it won’t,” he agrees mildly. “But if it does, look after Charlie. Make sure he . . . doesn’t grieve for  _too_  long. And make sure Jake knows that I love him, and will  _always_  love him, and that I regret  _nothing_.”  
  
“Xander—”  
  
But his face is scrunching, eyes screwed shut as another contraction takes him. The late-shift nurse shoves me out of the way, and I nearly fall, but for Firenze catching me.  
  
Then Poppy’s shooing us out of the cubicle and closing the curtains around it.  
  


*

  
  
Charlie struggles mightily against the tides of unconsciousness, knowing that there’s somewhere important he has to be . . . that something important is happening, that he needs to be there for. . . .  
  
One herculean shove, like pushing his body up from under the deepest of pressures—fathoms and fathoms of it—and he’s surfacing with a name on his lips:  _Xander_.  
  
And with that, he’s sitting up even before his eyes are fully open. Around him, a familiar room spins and lurches, and he braces himself upright with arms that feel rubbery and weak.  
  
“Xander—” and before he can say anything else, he remembers . . . the Forest, the unicorns, the Acromantulas . . . and Xander, in labor. . . .  
  
“Oh,  _Merlin_ ,” he breathes. Then there are hands on his shoulders, attempting—and partially succeeding—in pushing him back to the what turns out to be a bed.  
  
He blinks away his dizziness, to limited success, to find himself staring up into Harry Potter’s grim, green eyes.  
  
“You’re in the Hogwarts infirmary,” he says, almost smiling. “We made it out.  _All_  of us.”  
  
Charlie’s heart, which had been racing, slows not a jot, because he has to be certain. Has to  _see_ for himself. “Xander? Where is he?”  
  
Harry opens his mouth to answer, but before he can, a long, agonized cry goes up from beyond a curtain to Charlie’s left, holding for an eternal moment . . . before cutting off suddenly.  
  
Charlie and Harry freeze.  
  
Silent seconds pass, and Harry opens his mouth again to speak, and another cry goes up from behind the curtain, this one thin and high and querulous—irritated, even: a child’s helpless cry.  
  
And once more, Charlie’s pushing himself up and out of bed, ignoring Harry’s half-hearted attempts to push him back down.  
  
Though alarmingly weak, his legs keep him upright, and he makes his careful way toward the curtain. He whips it aside just enough to admit himself and closes it behind him, on Harry’s stammered implorations to  _wait_.  
  
Two pairs of eyes land on Charlie as he stands there, trying to take in everything at once:  
  
Poppy Pomfrey is in the midst of wrapping something up in a small blue blanket. She’s cooing softly to the wriggling, lustily crying bundle.  
  
Another nurse, by her outfit, is casting a spell of some sort, frantic and stammering, wand-hand shaking as she waves it about.  
  
Medi-wizard Braden, his eyes on Charlie, pitying and apologetic, even as he calmly spell-casts, his wand swishing and flicking in confusing flurries, looks away after a few seconds, his eyes going back to the figure in the bed.  
  
To  _Xander_ , whose eyes rest on Charlie, a small half-smile on his pale lips.  
  
“Xand—oh, Xand!” Charlie is instantly at Xander’s side, the unfamiliar nurse moving quickly out of the way. He kneels, taking Xander’s limp hand and kissing those pale, cool lips. “You  _did it_ , love! You did it!”  
  
He murmurs and laughs between kisses which, most of a minute later that, he realizes aren’t being returned. “Xand, are you—” he starts to ask, leaning back, frowning, only to see that the expression on Xander’s face hasn’t changed one iota. He’s still almost smiling, his eyes staring at Charlie— _through_  Charlie.  
  
“ _Xand_?!” Charlie pulls Xander’s hand up to his cheek, shaking his head in absolute denial, even as the nurse behind him and Medi-wizard Braden stop their spell-casting. He can feel the weight of their gazes on him, heavy with compassion, and—  
  
 _No._  
  
Just . . .  _no._  
  
His entire being is one chorus of negation, even as Xander’s expression doesn’t change. Even as a hard hand descends upon his shoulder, squeezing, squeezing, squeezing. . . .  
  
The nurse who’d been behind Charlie steps forward, reaching out to close Xander’s eyes and Charlie slaps her hand away, glaring up at her, his vision strangely trebled.  
  
“Don’t!” Despite the seeming calm within, Charlie’s voice cracks like delicate china. “Don’t you touch him!”  
  
“I’m so sorry, Mr. Weasley, I—”  
  
“ _Charles_ ,” Poppy Pomfrey says gently, far too gently, her eyes filled with tears as she rocks the quieting blue bundle in her arms. “Charles . . . there’s nothing more to be done.”  
  
Shaking his head, Charlie gets to his feet without letting go of Xander’s hand and looks around him: at a defeated-looking Braden, whose head is hanging; at Poppy, who’s still rocking the blue bundle; at the other nurse, who’s sniffling and crying, and looks terribly young; at Harry, who’s hand is still squeezing his shoulder, though his gaze, green as demon-fire and shining with unshed tears, is on Xander.  
  
“Is . . . is the child, at least, healthy?” Harry asks, and for a few moments, no one answers. But finally, Poppy comes around the bed, carrying the whimpering blue bundle and trying to smile.  
  
“He’s as healthy as anyone could want. Got a fine set of lungs on him, too,” she says quietly, lowering the bundle so Charlie and Harry can look. And Harry does, his face closing off as he reaches out . . . as if to touch the blanket. But at the last moment he stays his hand and smiles grimly. Then he says, very softly, almost inaudibly, something Charlie will remember till the end of his days, without ever understanding:  
  
“I hope you’re happy . . . I hope your bloody second chance is worth it . . .  _Bright Child_.”  
  
Then he’s turning away, shoulders slumped and dejected for several moments, before firming back up.  
  
“Don’t . . . don’t move the body, and don’t tell anyone what’s happened until I get back. And I mean  _no one_. I  _will_  be back shortly,” he says tersely, wand out, and swishing. “ _Apparate_!”  
  
And with that, he’s gone, leaving Charlie to stare at the blue-wrapped bundle in Poppy’s arms.  
  
Round, dark-dark eyes stare back at Charlie, wet and intelligent, out of a face that, except for a bright spray of freckles across the bridge of the nose, is entirely Xander’s, in miniature. . . .  
  
Charlie looks away from the child and back at Xander, who’s still smiling, and at nothing any of them will see this side of the Beyond.  
  
“He looks just like you,” Charlie says softly, squeezing Xander’s hand, hoping for a response even now, and dying inside when he gets none. “He’s  _beautiful_.”  
  
“Take him, please, Charles,” Poppy says kindly, holding the baby out to him, and Charlie reaches out with one arm. But she tsks. “Both arms, please. He’s just got here. I’ll not have you dropping him like a fumbled quaffle.”  
  
“But—” Charlie begins, not wanting to let go of Xander’s hand—of  _Xander_ —even to take hold of the child they’d wanted so badly.  
  
“ _Take him_ , Charles.”  
  
With one more glance at Xander— _I’m so sorry, love, I need both arms for Jake_ —Charlie lets go. . . .  
  
And a moment later his arms are curving around his first-born son.  
  
A moment after that, he’s leaning down to kiss Jake’s warm forehead. Jake makes a sound that could mean anything then begins to cry in earnest when Charlie’s tears rain on his face.  
  
Holding his inconsolable child, the equally inconsolable father sinks to his knees, shaking, and fallen down a dark well of neverending grief.  
  


*

  
  
The knocking at the door is both determined and loud. So loud, that it wakes both witches out of a sound sleep.  
  
“Who’d be knocking at  _this_  hour?” the blonde asks, yawning, already falling back asleep. Her partner, whose sleep had been thin at best, smiles and kisses the blonde’s hair.  
  
“I dunno. But it sounds pretty urgent. I’ll get it and you go back to sleep?”  
  
“Alright, baby . . . but you’ll call for me if it’s important?”  
  
“Of course.”  
  
“Good. . . .”  
  
Still smiling a little at the blonde—who cocoons herself in all the sheets and is snoring lightly in seconds—the other witch gets out of bed, summoning her bathrobe with a gesture.  
  
By the time she gets downstairs, the knocking has somehow grown more urgent. Smile forgotten, she walks on cat-feet down the front hall, not turning on any lights—she doesn’t need them, this late in the game.  
  
At the door, she gestures once more and the door achieves one-way transparency. She stares hard at the person on her doorstep, mouth agape, wondering what in the  _Hell_. . . .  
  
Finally, she ends the spell with a sigh and opens the door.  
  
The man on her doorstep in the dark, disheveled robe with the wild hair and even wilder green eyes behind askew glasses, is caught mid-knock. He’s leaning against the porch railing as if it’s the only thing holding him up. One eyebrow quirking up, she tucks a trailer of red hair behind her ear.  
  
“So, what brings an auror to Denmark to knock on my door, at this time of night?” she asks the waiting wizard.  
  
The wizard takes a deep breath and sags, nearly falling into the house. Genuinely worried, now, she almost steps forward to catch him. Almost, but doesn’t. And anyway, he saves himself at the last second, waving away any help. Instead, he peers up at her as if he’s trying to find the words he needs, and can’t.  
  
“You don’t know me,” he says finally, wearily, in a scratchy, croaking tenor. “But my name—“  
  
“Is Harry Potter—yes, I know who you are, Auror Potter. Everyone in the Wizarding world does.” Shrugging, she stands aside and waits for him to enter the house without her invitation—if he can.  
  
He steps forward without hesitation, with a lurch, leaning for a moment on the doorframe, before stepping into the house proper. All without taking his eyes off her.  
  
“I’m  _not_  a vampire,” he says firmly, scowling, and she smiles.  
  
“Well, that’s obvious. How may I help the Deparment of Magical Law Enforcement, today?”  
  
Auror Potter shakes his head, smiling bitterly. “I’m not here on behalf of the DMLE, Mrs. Rosenberg-McClay. If they knew what I was here to do, sunrise’d see me sitting in Azkaban awaiting my trial . . . no . . . I’m here on personal business.  _Very_  personal. I’m here on behalf of . . . someone whom I love.  
  
“His name is Xander. . . .”  
  
Blinking, Willow Rosenberg-McClay takes a step back, hand coming up to cover her suddenly rabbiting heart. “What—how—how do you even know about Xander? Xander’s been dead for nearly twenty years!”  
  
Auror Potter smiles bitterly. “You’re half-right, Mrs. Rosenberg-McClay. And it’s actually been closer to twenty-minutes. Well . . . more like an hour, probably. Though I’ve quite lost track of time.” He lets slip a laugh that’s seen saner days.  
  
Then faster than she can follow, he’s got his wand out—not pointed at her, but still, not very reassuring. “Have you got a pensieve on the premises?”  
  
Hand coming up to cover her throat, Willow takes another step back, one gesture away from stunning this perhaps deranged hero. . . .  
  
 _But he said something about being here on Xander’s behalf . . . which is impossible, since Xander’s dead twice over . . . isn’t he?_  
  
Looking, however, into Auror Potter’s wild, but fiercely determined eyes, Willow finds herself nodding in answer to his question. “Yes, I have a pensieve.”  
  
He smiles, small and relieved, and it does nothing to cover the suddenly plain look of raw heartbreak on his face. Willow knows that look and the feelings that go with it, very well. Hadn’t she felt them herself, many times over? The first being when she found out Jesse had slayed Xander—vampire-Xander—at the  _Bronze_  all those years ago?  
  
“Good.  _Brilliant_ , actually. Because I have something rather remarkable to show you. . . .”


	31. Paradise, Gained

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One man’s tragic loss is another man’s spectacular gain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes/Warnings: Canon compliant for both ‘verses. M-Preg. Major character death mentioned. Set post-Chosen by about eleven years, and post DH/e by ten years (I fiddled with timelines a bit). Spoilers for BtVS “Chosen” and DH/e.  
> Disclaimer: For my own amusement and titillation.
> 
> Further Note: The formatting for this is messed up, for some reason, and nothing I do seems to fix it. Most of this installment is SUPPOSED TO BE told in italics, from near the beginning, all the way to the last few paragraphs. But AO3 seems to be only sporadically showing those italics. So, if you want to see it the way it SHOULD look, here's a link to my Livejournal and Dreamwidth journal. Sorry for the inconvenience.
> 
> http://users.livejournal.com/_beetle_/225532.html  
> http://beetle-comma-the.dreamwidth.org/222487.html

Poppy was kind enough to get a chair for Charlie, and he’s been sat in it since Medi-wizard Braden—with many shell-shocked condolences—left, promising Charlie and Poppy that he’d not file any reports or logs on the events of the evening till he heard from Auror Potter.  
  
Now, at moonset, Jake sleeping somewhat fitfully in his arms, Charlie stares into space—it hurts too much to stare at the sheet-covered body in the bed, the hand of which he now cannot bring himself to touch, let alone take—or sometimes down at his dozing son.  
  
When awake, the boy cries and whimpers nonstop—and Charlie knows why. Not because he’s hungry or needs changing. But because he needs  _Xander_ , and Xander’s . . . not  _here_ , anymore. Will  _never_  be here again. And somehow, little Jake understands this in the way only the orphaned, or partially-orphaned can.  
  
He’s missing half the love and happiness that should attend these first precious moments of his life, and that’s horribly unfair. It makes Charlie ache. It makes him  _angry_. At everyone . . . at Medi-wizard Braden, at Poppy, at Harry Potter, at the bloody  _unicorns_ —where was their bloody benediction when it counted? What for, the travail of the Forest, then, if this is the result?—at Xander . . . poor, sweet, brave Xander for dying . . . and most especially at himself for having failed his husband and his child so deeply. . . .  
  
“Hush, lad . . . Papa, at least, is here,” Charlie murmurs, rocking Jake when he begins to stir and make waking noises. He’s a big, healthy baby—long, solid bones . . .  _Weasley_  bones that even show in his little face, despite it looking exactly like Xander’s. He’ll have the Weasley-look about him the older he gets, except, of course, for those dark, dark eyes . . . darker, even than Xander’s—according to Poppy and Braden. “Papa will  _always_  be here. No matter what.”  
  
In his arms, Jake settles, his mouth working. Charlie reaches for the bottle on the night table next to the bed, almost smiling. In this, Jake is exactly like Xander. He eats even in his sleep.  
  
And with that thought, the tears come again, as they have, rather frequently, since he first took Jake from Poppy’s arms.  
  
“Oh, love,” he breathes quietly, finally looking at the sheeted body, glad that he can only just make out the shape of Xander under the white cotton. Glad he can’t see that small half-smile—as if Xander was almost  _happy_  to see whatever place or people waited for him in the Beyond . . . happy to be leaving his husband and newborn child—or the lifeless loll of Xander’s empty body. The stasis field Poppy had cast around it keeps the body from getting rigor mortis. Keeps it as it was in the moments immediately following his . . . death.  
  
And with thinking it, comes, yet again, the recurring realization that Charlie will be spending the rest of his life alone. That he’d had it—had _paradise_  . . . and lost it. Lost it because, eight months ago, in a fit of Merlin-only-knows-what, he’d decided to get Xander pregnant. Had stuck his love with the dangerous burden of carrying his child—another Weasley, in a world where more than a hundred such bear that sometimes unfortunate name. . . .  
  
 _All because I wanted a son . . ._ this, Charlie thinks, looking down at that son, still fitfully sleeping in his arms. He pushes the blanket swaddling the boy up his head a little. Jake was born with auburn wisps on his crown that Poppy assures him will likely turn into a fine head of thick, rather thatchy hair like Charlie’s only, of course, darker.  _I wanted a baby that was a part of both of us, and . . . I’ve got him. I’ve got him, now, and I’ve lost Xander as the cost._  
  
Bowing his head and kissing Jake’s, Charlie sighs.  
  
Outside the window, the moon begins to set, making way for the first day of what will be many without the man who was not only his complement, but his completion.

 

 

*

  
  
Charlie’s managed a light doze of his own toward dawn, having gotten up to change Jake a grand total of three times since he was born (something with which, having had so many younger siblings  _and_  nieces and nephews, Charlie is very familiar with), and feed him twice.  
  
Jake has finally settled into a deeper sleep that features no whimpering or small, unhappy noises, and the infirmary is, but for the few noises of the night nurse all the way at the other end of the place, silent as the grave.  
  
That silence is suddenly broken by an economical thunder-crack that jolts Charlie out of his desperate sleep with a name already on his lips and, for some reason, an unnamed hope in his heart.  
  
“Harry?” he mumbles, opening his gritty, aching eyes. For who else has the power to  _Apparate_  through Hogwarts’ anti-Apparation wards? Who else has the sheer bollocks to not only do it, but the popularity to  _get away_  with doing it?  
  
And indeed, the curtains of Xander’s cubicle are swept open, letting in early morning light, and Harry Potter, looking barely alive, himself, strides in, followed by two unfamiliar women, one blonde, one a redhead of a different shade than the average Weasley.  
  
“Charlie,” Harry says gruffly, his voice a harsh croak, as if he’s been talking too much or not enough in the past hours. He makes his way to Xander’s other side and without any explanation, whips back the sheet covering Xander. The redhead standing at the head of the cubicle gasps, her hand coming up to her mouth, her eyes filling with tears.  
  
“ _Xander_?” she says, and Charlie—rocking the waking babe in his arms, hopefully back to his poor, determined sleep—sits up, his heart leaping up in his throat for some reason.  
  
“You know . . . you  _knew_  my husband?” he asks, his own voice doing a fair bit of croaking. And the redhead doesn’t respond for long moments, tears running down her face from reddened green eyes that are closer in color to Xander’s gentle green than Harry’s fierce one.  
  
Finally the redhead nods. “I did. Once upon a timeline.” She has an American accent, almost exactly like Xander’s, and the hearing of it hurts Charlie, even as it makes him want to hear her speak more. Those shocked, heartbroken green eyes tick to his, and she attempts a smile, stepping toward him, her gaze taking him in. “My name is Willow Rosenberg-McClay—”  
  
“ _Willow_?” Charlie asks, blinking in wonder. “ _Xander_ ’s Willow? From Sunnydale?”  
  
Smiling in surprise, Willow nods quickly. “He . . . he told you about me?”  
  
Charlie laughs a little. “About you, and Mr. Giles, and Buffy Summers, all of you—I don’t suppose you’d be . . .  _Anyanka_?” he asks the blonde, who smiles and shakes her head.  
  
“Actually, I’m Tara,” she says softly, and Charlie nods, sitting forward in his chair, still absently rocking Jake. Though the boy continues to make the loud whimpers that mean he’ll shortly be crying that heart-rending, inconsolable cry that only ends when he cries himself to sleep.  
  
“Tara,” Charlie says, and: “Of course. Xander always spoke of your kindness . . . and of your chocolate chip macadamia biscuits.”  
  
Tara laughs, glancing at Willow, who’s staring at the bundle that is Jake wonderingly. “Just like Jesse does,” Tara murmurs.  
  
Willow steps closer to Charlie, holding out her arms. “M-may I hold him for a moment?”  
  
And for a second, Charlie is about to say  _no_ , to clutch his son to him— _he’s all I have left of Xander . . . all I have,_ period—but then he smiles, tears in his eyes.  _This is_ Willow _. Xander would_ want</i> her to know his son.</i>  
  
“Of course,” he says finally, holding out Jake. Willow’s teary smile widens and she takes the baby, cooing softly, despite Jake’s cries.  
  
“I know, sweetie, I know,” she murmurs to Jake, smiling like a woman in love.  
  
Tara leans in to look at the baby and says: “Ohh, he’s so beautiful. . . .”  
  
“He looks just like Xander. Even his chin, and that  _mouth_ —but his eyes are so dark—” she glances at Charlie and smiles. “Darker than yours, too. I guess Jake’s just got his own eyes.”  
  
Charlie laughs, wiping the eyes his son didn’t inherit. “They’re shaped like Xander’s, at least, if not the same color.”  _Not the same warm sable as his, or the ordinary brown of mine. Jake does, indeed, have his own eyes, as black as a lake at midnight. . . ._  
  
“Oh,” Willow says, rocking Jake and laughing. “I always wanted Xander to have  _this_. A life with someone he loved and a family. A  _real_ family, not those two assholes that raised him, and their batshit kin.”  
  
Charlie frowns. “Xander doesn’t talk much about his parents and family, but I got the feeling that they weren’t . . . ideal.”  
  
Willow snorts. “You don’t know the half of it. Abusive alcoholics and mental-cases. Mostly on his dad’s side. His mom’s side was a little better. And  _her_  mom, Xander’s maternal grandmother, was actually really nice, really loved Xander . . . but she died when Xander and I were eight.” She shakes her head and sighs.  
  
“I hate to interrupt this, I truly do, but,” Harry Potter begins apologetically, looking up from a heretofore quiet contemplation of the shell of what used to be the man that he and Charlie had loved so deeply. “But we won’t be able to keep this—the birth of the child and Xander’s death—secret for much longer. If, indeed, it’s still a secret. Willow, Tara—” Harry gestures for the witches to come closer, and Willow nods, handing the baby back to Charlie. When she does, Jake’s cries calm somewhat, and he stares up at Charlie accusingly with those dark, old-soul eyes as if to say:  _Where did you go? Don’t do that again!_  
  
Willow and Tara, meanwhile, have joined Harry at Xander’s side, Willow with tears running down her face. Tara, meanwhile, is removing a large book sack from her back, placing it on the bed next to Xander, and opening it. She immediately begins to remove what looks like potions ingredients . . . and a large, ancient-looking tome.  
  
“What’s . . . what’s going on, Harry?” Charlie asks, and Harry’s gaze meets his own, desperate and wild. Barely hanging on to sanity, from the looks. Charlie would take a step back, if he was standing, and as it is, he clutches his son closer, protectively.  
  
Harry snorts, glancing at the blue-wrapped baby dismissively. Then his gaze is softening as it lights on Xander once more, his fingers brushing Xander’s pale cheek.  
  
“We’re going to get Xander back,” Harry says plainly. Then he leans down to whisper in Xander’s ear before kissing his cheek. Gobstruck, Charlie can only gape and try to make sense of the nonsense that just came out of Harry Potter’s normally rational mouth. “We’re coming for you, Xander. Coming to bring you home.”

 

 

*

  
  
Charlie, still holding Jake, watches as Harry takes off his auror’s robe and shoes, and loosens his grey necktie. Then he’s sitting heavily on the bed Charlie had woken up in last night and watching as the two witches begin preparing their—potion? Spell? Both? All Charlie knows is he’s never seen a melding of the two disciplines quite like what they do. And all with no wands.  
  
After some back and forth, some chanting the likes of which Charlie’s never heard—but Harry doesn’t seem to be surprised by it at all. In fact, once it starts, he lays down and takes off his glasses, placing them on the small nighttable next to the bed—the infirmary starts to feel just a wee bit strange. As if there’re more people present than any of them can see. And different from the castle’s usual ghosts, too.  
  
Not wanting to disturb the chanting or the strange atmosphere, Charlie quietly makes his way over to Harry and asks in a whisper: “And what, exactly, is going to happen, again?”  
  
Tired green eyes tick to Charlie’s, measuring, but otherwise unreadable.  
  
“They’re sending me into the—well, into  _Xander’s_  afterlife to get him back. If I can.”  
  
Charlie frowns. “This is insane, you know? And even if it wasn’t completely crazy, shouldn’t  _I_  be the one to—”  
  
“You’ve got a baby to look after. Willow and Tara have to be here to manage the spell. On short notice, the only choice left is me, as usual.” Harry pauses, pinching the bridge of his nose, then blinking myopically up at Charlie. “And it’s not like I haven’t been dead, before. Blimey, it’ll be like old home week, for me.”  
  
His crooked, wild smile is not the least bit reassuring to Charlie.  
  
“And what happens if you can’t find him?” Charlie asks, when something even more horrifying occurs to him. “What if you can  _find_  him, and then you two can’t find your way back  _here_?”  
  
Harry opens his mouth to answer just as Willow shouts a word Charlie doesn’t recognize and the sudden crackle of a roaring flame sounds from behind Charlie. He glances behind him quickly and does, indeed, see flames the exact same color as Harry’s eyes, leap from the small bowl on Xander’s cleared-off nighttable.  
  
Shuddering, he turns back to Harry for his answer, only to find that Harry Potter is stone-cold dead.

 

 

*

  
  
_There’s nothing. Literally_ no-thing _to see or hear or feel. And it is, beyond all doubt, eternal.  
  
_ So, this, then, is being dead, _he thinks eventually, disappointed and frustrated, and wondering how in the bloody hell he’s going to find . . . find . . . well, whatever he was looking for. How he’ll find_ anything _in this.  
  
Because he may not remember lots of things, such as his name, who or where he was before being in this No-Thing Place, but he knows he was looking for the something . . . or perhaps someone important.  
  
And, as if all that’s been wanting is this averral of a mission—a _ Crusade _—to himself, he sees a flash of eyes—lovely eyes, one a soft, sable brown, the other the green of spring grass—and a smile that would make his heart beat faster had he heart to do so.  
  
_ There! _he thinks desperately._ I need to go  _there!_  By Merlin, if there’s Any-Thing out there that can hear and help, take me there! _  
  
And, as if all that’s been wanting is this averral of a love so consuming, it’s driven him to the brink of death and Beyond, he’s falling . . . falling. In this place of No-Things, and No-Where, he is_ falling _, and he falls forever, until he lands with a solid thud, in a Where of Many-Things and Many-Sounds—so many that he can’t sort them all out, can’t adjust after an eternity of nothingness.  
  
It’s a din and clangor of sights and scents and sounds that makes no sense until one word, one clarion call rings out from the morass, and he begins to exist once again, as himself. The self that was born on the night a manky old hat shouted merrily into his brain:_

 

 

*

  
  
“Gryffindor!”  _ _The Sorting Hat crows, and Harry Potter, relieved, hops off the stool and makes his way toward where Ron and that maybe-mental Granger-girl are standing, smiling, and applauding. It’s more approbation in these few moments than Harry has felt in the entire span of his short life, and it’s very heady stuff, indeed.  
  
Just before he reaches Ron, who’s started to cheer, Harry passes another dark-haired Gryffindor boy who seems vaguely familiar . . . especially his two-tone, brown-and-green eyes. They’re staring at Harry with the same look of wondering confusion, as if recognizing Harry from somewhere, too.  
  
“Hullo,” Harry says as he passes, and the other boy smiles, a friendly, rather lovely thing that’s accompanied by a blush.  
  
“Hey—” he starts, but then Ron’s grabbing Harry for a hug and a pat on the back. And when Harry glances over his shoulder, meaning to send an apologetic look to the boy, he instead notices that none other than the Headmaster, Albus Dumbledore, is applauding. Floored, Harry can only nod back when the Headmaster nods to him graciously, and the boy with the two-tone eyes is forgotten, and not thought about again for a very long time.  
  
__

 

 

*

_  
  
“Harry?”  
  
Sitting alone in the common area, well past lights-out, Harry Potter looks up into brown-and-green eyes and finds himself almost—_ almost _—smiling.  
  
“That’d be me . . . and you’re . . . Aleksander, right?” Harry asks somewhat distractedly. The boy nods, smiling, and that smile, something about it, drags Harry’s attention away from his brooding—why, of all people, did _ he _have to be the one to speak bloody Parseltongue? Why’d it have to come out where everyone could_ see _?—and to the present. The other boy, Aleksander, sits next to him on the couch in front of the dying fire. “Aleksander Krakauer?”  
  
“Someone has to be,” he says, in his lovely accent. Harry wonders if all Californians sound like Aleksander. He supposes they must, and wonders if he’ll live to see such a fantastical place. “Can’t sleep?”  
  
Smiling ruefully, Harry shrugs. “Haven’t tried. Got too much to think about.”  
  
“Yeah.” Aleksander looks down at his blue-slippered feet. He’s a taller, larger boy than Harry—practically everyone in their Year is—and swings them a bit. He looks, in his red bathrobe and yellow pajamas, like the quintessential Gryffindor. Though it’s more, Harry muses, than just the clothes that make Aleksander fairly scream _ Gryffindor _. It’s something a lot less easy to define but a lot more easy to recognize. “So . . . you speak Parcels-Tongue, huh?”  
  
Back suddenly up and wary, Harry nods. “Yeah,” he answers, just as defensively as he feels, and Aleksander holds up his hands in placation.  
  
“Hey, I’m not judging. In fact . . . I’ve got no room to judge,” he says wryly, and it comes out so smoothly, so fluently, that it takes Harry a moment to realize that Aleksander just spoke in Parseltongue.  
  
He’s still gaping most of a minute later when Aleksander risks a quick glance at him.  
  
“My Uncle Jakob told me never to tell anyone. That they might . . . take it the wrong way. And I guess he was right,” the other boy whispers in English, his eyes solemn, and wary, now, too. “But I don’t think Uncle Jakob would mind me telling _ you _ _. Seeing as you’ve got the gift, too. And anyway, you look like a guy who can keep a secret real well.”  
  
“You—speak it, too?” Harry shakes his head, smiling a little when Aleksander nods hesitantly, then squares his shoulders with pride. “Bloody hell!”  
  
“I also speak Polish and German, incidentally. But somehow that’s less impressive than being able to charm snakes and iguanas, I suppose.” Aleksander laughs, and the wariness fades some, as he places his hand on Harry’s. They both jump at a small spark of static electricity, and laugh again.  
  
“Anyway, I just wanted you to know you’re not the only one. That . . . you’re not alone, Harry. And if, at any time, you wanna speak Parcels-Tongue to someone who won’t laugh or be scared, or wanna put you under a microscope . . . you can come talk to me.”  
  
“I . . . thank you. I’ll remember that,” Harry stammers, staring into Aleksander’s strange eyes and blushing, even as his stomach flips and flops.  
  
And Aleksander squeezes his hand for a moment before letting go. Then, with another smile, shy but friendly, he hops up, and makes his way up the stairs to his dorm room. Leaving Harry to stare at his still-tingling hand and smile to himself.  
  
__

 

 

*

_  
  
Harry makes his careful, invisible way through Hogsmeade Village, following after Ron and Hermione, absently sucking on a Sherbert Lemon, when he spots a familiar face whilst glancing absently into the picture-window of_ Puddifoot’s _.  
  
It’s Aleksander Krakauer, the other Parseltongued boy, sitting at a table in a corner, all by himself, looking uncertain and a little anxious.  
  
Harry feels a pang of kinship with this boy. And something else that makes him want to take off his cloak and walk proudly in there, take a seat across from him, cover Aleksander’s hand with his own, and . . . and. . . .  
  
Well, Harry doesn’t know what comes after _ and _, but he has a feeling it’d be bloody_ brilliant _.  
  
And he’s got his hands on the edges of the cloak, ready to open it wide, when—  
  
—when Michael Corner, that sulky, bloody Ravenclaw, hurries past him, nearly bumping into him. Harry jumps aside nimbly, and Corner, none the wiser, goes into _ Puddifoot’s _ _. As Harry watches in growing disbelief, Corner makes straight for, well, the corner where Aleksander is sitting. And Aleksander’s eyes light up when Corner stops at his table, then nervously sits.  
  
Corner says something, still obviously nervous, but Aleksander waves it away, somewhat nervously, himself, his eyes going wide when Corner reaches out and puts a hand on his own, visibly swallowing.  
  
Harry turns away from Aleksander’s smile, which could light up all of Hogsmeade and then some. Huddles more firmly under his cloak, and walks on, toward the Three Broomsticks.  
  
__

 

 

*

_  
  
After Parvati goes off to dance with that Beauxbatons boy, Harry sinks even further into his sulk, Ron sinking with him.  
  
All of a sudden, Harry can’t take his eyes off of Aleksander Krakauer who, despite a whole night of doing so, is _ still _dancing with Michael Corner!  
  
Bad enough that the first half of Harry’s night had been spent staring at Cho and Cedric, who’d looked bloody gorgeous together, and meant for each other. The second half, after Cho and Cedric had disappeared together, had been commandeered by Aleksander and Michael, also gorgeous together and perfect-looking.  
  
“Stare any harder at him, mate, and he’ll burst into flame.”  
  
“What?” Harry glances at Ron, who rolls his eyes.  
  
“If you’re so bloody sweet on Michael Corner—and ugh, the thought sickens and revolts—just ask him to dance,” Ron says then sighs. “There’s no one here to see or care. And at least one of us would get to have some bloody fun.”  
  
“I’m not—I’m not _ sweet _on that pompous ass, Michael Corner!” Harry hisses, punching Ron in the arm, for good measure.  
  
“Oi! Steady-on! If not him, Harry, then who—_ ohhhh _.” Ron nods, rubbing his arm. “It’s that Krakauer bloke, is it?”  
  
“I’m not sweet on _ anyone _, Ron. I’m just . . . staring off into space, and they happen to be in my way,” Harry huffs, and Ron rolls his eyes again.  
  
“Sure, mate. Whatever you say. But if you don’t mind, I’ll tell Gin to stop holding her breath, next time I see her.”  
  
“_ What? _”  
  
“Nothing.” He and Harry watch Aleksander laugh as Michael leans in to whisper in his ear. Then leans  _back_  just enough to kiss Aleksander. On the bloody _lips _, even._ Open-mouthed _ _, even.  
  
“Blimey,” Ron mutters, shaking his head and looking green. “I think I’m traumatized.”  
  
“Yeah. Me, too,” Harry agrees, but for quite different reasons, as he watches the pair—looking like an advertisement for happiness—finally leave the dance floor of the Yule Ball, hand in hand.  
  
__

 

 

*

_  
  
After DA breaks up for the day, Harry’s still standing in the Room of Requirement, holding his wand and staring into a mirror and wondering what, exactly he sees there.  
  
He thinks he’s alone, until a figure joins his in the mirror, smiling a little.  
  
“Vanity, thy name is Harry.”  
  
Starting, Harry turns to face Aleksander Krakauer, who’s smiling his big, bloody gorgeous smile. It’s a welcome change from Cho’s teary face, or his own grim, stressed-out one, at any rate.  
  
“Oh, hullo.”  
  
Aleksander tilts his head curiously. “That’s the big, open-armed welcome I’ve come to expect from our fearless leader,” he says wryly, then winks to take the sting out of it. Harry finds a smile of his own.  
  
“Sorry, just a bit . . . pensive, I suppose.”  
  
“I understand . . . not from personal experience, mind, but because, well, it must be really trying to have to be _ Harry Potter _all the time.” Aleksander shrugs, his easily sibilant Parseltongue sidling out of him like a salamander out from under a stone. Harry’s smile widens and he replies in kind.  
  
“It can be especially tiresome when trying to keep these meetings on track,” he admits, and Aleksander nods.  
  
“Especially when it comes to slowpokes like yours, truly. I dunno why it’s taking me so long to learn offensive and defensive magic. It’s so . . . _ different _from Transfigurations, which is dead-easy._ Expelliarmus _was hard to enough to learn, but the Patronus?” He sighs, running a hand through shoulderlength sable hair. “That’s killing me. Practically everyone’s getting it_ but _me.”  
  
Harry clears his throat, blushing for no reason. “Don’t worry, you’ll get it. It’s also dead-easy to cast and maintain, once you get the hang of it.” Taking out his own wand, Harry proceeds to demonstrate. “See, you swish and flick like so, and—”  
  
“Oh, that’s not the part that’s messing me up. It’s the whole . . . think-happy-thoughts-and-keep-them-going thing that’s the kicker,” Aleksander says, sighing again, frowning for what seems like the first time Harry’s ever seen, his dark-light eyes skittering off to the distance beyond Harry’s right shoulder. “It seems I’ve run out.”  
  
“Ah,” Harry says kindly. “I think I know where you’re coming from.”  
  
Those eyes flick to him again, searching and measuring . . . and finally Aleksander smiles again, tiredly. “Yeah. I suppose you do.” His smile turns wry and he looks down at his hands. “I guess the only thing for it is to find a nice memory or happy place and learn to hold on to it. But times like that are pretty thin on the ground.”  
  
Harry frowns. He knows next to nothing about Aleksander Krakauer, he realizes, and that thought makes him sad, for some reason. Makes him _ curious _. “What about . . . time spent with friends or family? Christmases and the like? Even a few moments of good feelings from things like that can power your Patronus, you know?”  
  
Aleksander’s gaze remains on his hands. “When I was little—well, till I was ten, actually, my Uncle Jakob and I lived pretty hand to mouth. Always on the move. We never really celebrated the holidays, except when we were in some soup-kitchen or church dinner for the . . . less fortunate.” That wry smile turns briefly bitter. “We bounced all up and down Cali, from odd job to odd job, school to school. I never really made any friends till I came here. And the only reason a lot of the people here like me is because I’m . . . an American curiosity. But if they knew just how . . . curious my life’s been . . . they probably wouldn’t be so keen to be my friend, you know?” Bright, but unreadable eyes finally meet Harry’s again.  
  
Harry knows how that goes, unfortunately. Even now, practically no one but Ron and Hermione, among his set of friends, know about how his life with the Dursleys had _ really _been, before Hogwarts. And_ still _is, to some extent.  
  
“What about . . . I mean, you and Michael . . . for the past almost almost two years. Surely there’re some happy memories there,” Harry stammers out, turning red again. Even more so when Aleksander laughs mirthlessly.  
  
“What _ about _Michael Corner?” That bright gaze has gotten suspiciously shiny. He looks down again, hair curtaining his face. In that moment, Harry realizes that it’s a_ handsome _face. It always has been—a face that’s always been easy to look at, always makes Harry’s stomach churn and his spine tingle whenever he sees it. Especially when it sees him back and smiles . . . as if Harry Potter’s presence is the sun rising. “Michael Corner is . . . a fucking dick.”  
  
Harry blinks. It’s the first time he’s heard Aleksander swear. “I . . . don’t understand—”  
  
“He dumped me, alright? When I joined DA.” Another mirthless laugh. “I told him we should both join and _ he _said he wouldn’t even if you, Harry Potter, asked him personally. And then he forbade_ me _to join.” Aleksander looks up at Harry with angry, hurt eyes. “Can you believe that shit?_ I _couldn’t. Not at first. I tried to reason with him. To make him see that this was a fight worth fighting, and that . . . if nothing else, history wouldn’t look kindly on cowards who sat on the sidelines while other people risked their—I dunno._ Lives _, maybe. Certainly their futures. That if we let people like that Um-bitch win once, we’ll_ always _be letting them win. . . .  
  
“I basically poured out my heart—every reason why I wanted to do something to stand up for what’s _ right _, and for the only home I’ve ever had. And . . . he fucking dumped me.” Aleksander swipes at his eyes impatiently. “Not that things between us were going so great, but . . . I dunno. I just expected better of him. Better than I got. Better than I’m_ getting _. He’s already been seen kissing Justin Finch-Fletchley. Lavender Brown was quite quick to tell me_ that _bit of news.”  
  
“Fuck.” Harry puts a hand out hesitantly then lets it settle gently on Aleksander’s shoulder. “I’m sorry.”  
  
“I’m not. I get to see who Michael Corner really is. Maybe a little too late, but better than finding out when we’re—I dunno, married, or something.” Another laugh, this one small and self-mocking. He gives Harry another measuring look. “You know what I’ve been trying to use as my good memory to power my Patronus?”  
  
Harry shakes his head, and Aleksander’s lips twist back into that wry smile. “I’ve been using . . . the first time Michael and I . . . you know. Went all the way.”  
  
Harry’s eyes widen till it feels like they’ll fall out of his skull. “You—er . . . you’ve—shagged _ Michael Corner _?”  
  
Aleksander snorts. “Unfortunately, yes. And I don’t recommend it. At first it hurts then it’s just boring. But at least it’s over relatively quick,” he says, frowning as if not certain that’s a good thing. Harry, red once more, shakes his head again.  
  
“Did . . . did you like it _ at all _? Even a little?” he asks, wondering how he’d feel shagging Cho Chang. Somehow, he doesn’t think it’d be very much fun. Which leads him to wonder who it_ would _be fun with.  
  
And on the heels of that wonderment, he finds himself looking at Aleksander Krakauer with new eyes. . . .  
  
In the meantime, Aleksander appears to give the question Harry had asked him serious thought, and finally sighs yet again. “I liked his arms around me. He . . . for a little while, anyway, made me feel sorta safe. Kinda like how I feel every time I come back to Hogwarts when the summer ends, except not nearly as strong or right.”  
  
“Maybe . . . maybe _ that’s _the feeling you need to hold onto,” Harry says slowly, mind whirling as he thinks it through. “Maybe your happy thought, as you put it, is that feeling of coming home to somewhere safe. Somewhere you know you’ll always be welcome, and always belong.”  
  
Aleksander’s looking at Harry with wide, wondering eyes. “You . . . think so? I mean, it’s not a huge, overwhelming happiness, just . . . it feels like being warm all over, and right to the very marrow of my bones. It’s . . . quietly the most wonderful thing I’ve ever felt, I guess.” He smiles at Harry almost shyly, and Harry returns the smile and steps around Aleksander, so that he’s behind him, placing his own arms and hands over Aleksander’s.  
  
“What—?” Aleksander begins, turning his head a little to look at Harry, but Harry nudges Aleksander’s shoulder with his chin. Then he raises Aleksander’s wand hand—unlike Harry, Aleksander’s a left-handed wand—and guides it through a precise swish and flick.  
  
“Now,” Harry breathes still in Parseltongue, in Aleksander’s ear, shivering when Aleksander shivers, and leans back into him and against him slightly. Harry's careful to keep contact above the waist only. “Say the words.”  
  
Aleksander nods once, and clears his throat, hand clenching in Harry’s and around his wand.  
  
“Ex—um . . . _ Expecto Patronum? _ _”  
  
__

 

 

*

_  
  
The year comes and goes, and Harry barely has time to think of anything but Voldemort, and the War . . . but when he lets his mind, on the rare occasion, drift where it will, it drifts rather often to Aleksander Krakauer, to remember that_ smile _ _, and to wonder why the other boy hadn’t returned to Hogwarts this year. . . .  
  
Then, taking an objective look at the state of the school, and of Wizarding Great Britain . . . Harry ceases to wonder why . . . only if he’ll ever see Aleksander again.  
  
He hopes he lives that long.  
  
__

 

 

*

_  
  
It’s over.  
  
Finally.  
  
Forever.  
  
_ Over. _  
  
Harry staggers toward the castle, past the wounded, the dead, hearing but not hearing the tentative celebratory noises—feeling, but not feeling the pats on his back and congratulations, not stopping to speak to anyone.  
  
He thinks he might be looking for Ron and/or Hermione, but he’s not sure. His brain is a fuzz of white noise that prevents direct thought. Prevents, even, direct eye-contact or focusing on the sound of his name, which is called repeatedly as he makes his way along the familiar, but changed territory of Hogwarts.  
  
And so he sees, but does not see the wounded mates and acquaintances strewn about the changed landscape of the only home he’s ever known. Hears nothing but his own white noise until:  
  
“Oh, my God . . . _ Harry _?”  
  
This voice, this one voice pierces the white noise like a lance of sunlight through thick clouds, and Harry, for the first time in what feels like a life-age, looks up. Blinks. Then blinks again.  
  
“Aleksander?” He stares disbelievingly at the dusty, scraped figure before him, clutching his wand tightly in his fist, just like he had that day in the Room of Requirement, when Harry’d finally taught him the Patronus spell. “Is that . . . Aleksander Krakauer?”  
  
The other grins. “Someone has to be,” he says sardonically, wearily. Harry finds himself almost smiling.  
  
“Your Patronus is a crup,” he says through numb lips, apropos of nothing, and Aleksander smiles, too, and nods.  
  
“You remembered.”  
  
“Of course . . . what . . . what’re you doing here? _ Now _?”  
  
Aleksander’s tentative smile widens briefly. “Couldn’t let you Brits have all the fun without me, could I?” The smile fades and Aleksander sniffles a little, looking down at his feet. “Uncle Jakob took me out of school last year because of all the shit going down, and . . . we rambled around Cali, back in the States, for awhile, until . . . he, um, died.” His gaze seeks out Harry’s, devastated and a little angry. “He kept telling me he had it beat, you know? The heroin. But I dunno if he was lying or he just suddenly relapsed then OD’d or—_ fuck _, I dunno. But there was no place else for me to go, no place that, even in the middle of a goddamn war, made me feel as safe as Hogwarts. And I was willing to_ die _defending it.” Aleksander snorts. “Nearly did, a couple times, too, lemme tell ya.”  
  
Harry’s shaking his head, but smiling a little. “I can honestly say the same . . . well, I’m . . . glad you made it.”  
  
“The feeling is mutual.” Aleksander’s smile shines out again, and he takes a step toward Harry, hand reaching up and out. The smile turns into a worried little frown and furrowed brow. “But you’re hurt—”  
  
“It’s nothing, it’s. . . .” Harry trails off as his own feet carry him a few steps closer, until Aleksander’s close enough to touch his cheek. Harry winces because it stings, but still smiles, because it also feels incredibly _ good _. “It’s nothing. Just a minor lacer—”  
  
And that’s all he gets to say before Aleksander’s leaned in and kissed him. A short, desperate, open-mouthed kiss—only the second Harry’s ever received, and far better, somehow, than the first.  
  
When Aleksander starts to pull away, Harry steps closer, one hand coming up to palm the back of Aleksander’s neck and pull him close again, into another kiss. The other boy moans, as sweetly sybaritic a thing as Harry’s ever heard, and before he can countenance it, his arms are wrapping around Aleksander’s waist, and Aleksander’s arms are wrapping around his neck. He tastes of salt and slightly of blood, but underneath that is a sweetness that’s simply _ Aleksander _, Harry realizes.  
  
When a need for oxygen forces them apart—but not far—Aleksander leans his forehead down till it touches Harry’s.  
  
“Been wanting to do that since I was eleven,” he breathes, and Harry laughs a little, his arms tightening around Aleksander possessively, protectively. “Very much worth the wait.”  
  
“I couldn’t agree more . . . and though I . . . don’t know how long I’ve been wanting to kiss _ you _—I’m not terribly swift on the uptake in these matters—I know it’s definitely been at least since Fifth Year,” Harry admits, his nose brushing Aleksander’s before he leans back to see the face he’s missed seeing for two years.  
  
Even covered in dust and scrapes and dirt, it’s still a handsome face. A _ beautiful _face. And Aleksander’s smile, when it comes, almost literally lights up the gloomy air around them.  
  
In short order, after staring into each other’s eyes besottedly, they’re leaning in to meet each other for more kisses that spark and sizzle and make them both moan hungrily.  
  
“Don’t ever leave me again,” Harry says urgently between kisses, chasing that Aleksander-sweetness passionately across Aleksander’s tongue and sucking it greedily from his lips. His hands clench anxiously about Aleksander’s waist, bruising-tight, but Aleksander doesn’t seem to mind, shivering and panting like a man who wants more. Harry is more than happy to oblige, one hand sliding around to Aleksander’s arse. “Stay with me, Aleksander.”  
  
“For as long as you want me, Harry.”  
  
_ Forever, then, _ _Harry thinks, Squeezing Aleksander tight and burying his own scraped and dirty face in the hollow junction between neck and shoulder and finally, for the first time in seven years—surrounded and protected by Aleksander’s scent and skin—letting the tears come.  
  
Aleksander holds him silently, and nothing more is said for quite some time.  
  
__

 

 

*

_  
  
“And you’re sure we won’t get caught?”  
  
“Did we get caught when we had DA meetings here?”  
  
“Well. . . .”  
  
“Right, then, but that was an anomaly,” Harry says, pushing his glasses up then taking Aleksander’s hand. Aleksander gasps when he gets pulled close and tight, then laughs into a kiss that takes them further into the room. Toward the soft, turned down bed that waits for them in the candle-lit area, which is strewn with red and white rose petals.  
  
“Happy Valentine’s Day. I love you,” Harry murmurs against Aleksander’s lips, and Aleksander smiles incandescently.  
  
“I love you, too, Harry,” he says softly, for the first time, and Harry shivers. It feels as if he’s been waiting to say it and hear Aleksander say it for longer than a mere nine months. Feels as if he’s been waiting far longer than that for this night in _ particular _. . . .  
  
“Are you nervous?” he asks Aleksander, who blushes.  
  
“What? My gross, sweaty palms aren’t enough to give me away?” he asks, wiping said palms on Harry’s robe.  
  
Harry laughs a little, feeling pretty nervous, himself. “I figured since . . . you know, you’d already done this, at least one of us wouldn’t be sweating sickles.”  
  
Aleksander frowns and reaches up to brush his fingers across Harry’s cheek, feather-light.  
  
“I wasn’t head over heels in love with _ him _. Not like I am with you. I didn’t want him nearly this much—didn’t want . . . no,_ need _ _to feel him inside me so badly, it felt like I’d die if I didn’t get it.” Aleksander sighs yearningly, his two-tone eyes intent on Harry’s. “Believe me, Harry, there’s no comparison.”  
  
Blushing, Harry squeezes Aleksander close and kisses him again, one hand sliding down to rest possessively on Aleksander’s arse. Aleksander moans, long and low, and backs them toward the bed, then letting himself fall backwards into its perfect softness, Harry on top of him, laughing.  
  
They’re both hard, and that’s no secret and nothing new. Around them, the softly-glowing air seems to dim just a tad, and the scent of roses intensifies.  
  
And the door to the Room of Requirement closes. It doesn’t open again for another sixteen hours.  
  
__

 

 

*

_  
  
The flat is small and drafty, but it has a huge, brick fireplace, and Aleksander likes that. It reminds him, he says, of his dorm room Hogwarts.  
  
As far as Harry Potter is concerned, whatever his lover wants, he gets.  
  
Their first few nights in residence are spent Christening and re-Christening the place, on every available flat surface . . . which isn’t_ many _flat surfaces, if one discounts the floor. But once, Harry even casts_ An Gravitus _, which suspends gravity in the flat and allows them to make love on the ceiling.  
  
(It of course goes awry when Aleksander gets nauseas and Harry burns his arm on the hot light fixture. But it’s the thought that counts.)  
  
By the time three months have passed—seemingly in a blink—Harry’s more than ready to take up the mantle of Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and Aleksander (_ ’Xander, _ _as Harry’s taken to calling him when they’re alone), still uncertain what he wants to do with his life, sheepishly takes up the duties of a housewife. Badly, at first, for he can’t cook to save his life, and his cleaning spells tend to go a bit wobbly. But as time goes on, he achieves a level of competence that seems to satisfy him.  
  
And anyway, Harry, who’s so in love Xander can do no wrong, hadn’t even minded all those times they both got food poisoning from Xander’s cooking.  
  
__

 

 

*

_  
  
Long after Xander’s fallen asleep, exactly two Valentine’s Days since their first as a couple, and exactly one Valentine’s Day since they eloped, Harry’s left awake, despite an evening spent making love in what felt like every way possible. His entire body is a roadmap of scratches and love-marks, his muscles are sore, his prick is oversensitized, and his arse bloody_ aches _. He is a man who’s well-spent . . . and yet . . . he can’t seem to close his eyes.  
  
Everything in his life is going perfectly, but something has begun to seem . . . not quite right. As if . . . as if he’s dreaming. Or as if this happy life he’s carved out with blood, sweat, and tears, could come to a sudden end at any moment.  
  
Which is, of course, ridiculous.  
  
Why would any of it end? Xander loves him as much, he knows, as he, himself, loves Xander. They’ve even been talking about getting a particular medium-sized cottage together, on the outskirts of Hogsmeade Village.  
  
“It’s the perfect place for us to live, baby,” Xander had said, not too many nights ago, as they lay in bed cuddling. “Neither too big nor too small, and close to where you work.”  
  
“Well. It _ is _quite close to Hogwarts. But it’s_ also _actually a bit too big. What would we do with those two extra bedrooms, love?”  
  
“Weeeellll. . . .” Xander had looked up into Harry’s eyes before leaning down to nuzzle his neck. In rather short order, Harry was almost embarrassingly hard. “We could turn one into an office for you, and the other . . . I was thinking we could turn into a nursery, maybe . . . if, you know . . . that was something you were interested in.”  
  
And Harry, shocked, had caught Xander’s face in his hands and looked into his dark-light eyes.  
  
“Are you serious?” he’d asked softly, and Xander had blushed, his gaze darting around some before meeting Harry’s again.  
  
“Yes,” he’d replied finally, simply, and Harry . . . had hauled him into a kiss that hadn’t broken until Harry had long since rolled atop Xander and was slowly, tenderly, pushing his way into tight, marvelous heat, like Heaven come to Earth.  
  
“Oh, _ Harry _,” Xander had moaned, tears standing out in his wide-open, unseeing eyes as his body arched against Harry’s. “Don’t stop. . . .”  
  
“I won’t, love,” Harry had promised—a promise he’d kept for most of the night. And the next morning, they’d begun researching fertility experts.  
  
Earlier, on this, their second Valentine’s Day and first anniversary, it’d finally come down to two such experts: Medi-witch Elizabeth Carlysle and Medi-wizard Romare Braden. . . .  
  
So close to cementing their lives together—about to start a _ family _together—how could any of it end abruptly? How could any of it be a dream?  
  
Sighing, Harry rolls onto his side and spoons with a lightly snoring Xander, his hand coming to rest on Xander’s as yet flat, untenanted abdomen.  
  
_ This is ridiculous, _he thinks again, kicking himself for being such a brooding worry-wart. His and Xander’s happily ever after is right on track. Had never been_ righter _ _.  
  
And tomorrow’s appointment with Medi-witch Carlysle would be one more step down that rightness-track.  
  
Smiling and nuzzling Xander’s shoulder, Harry Potter finally falls asleep.  
  
__

 

 

*

_  
  
When Harry gets home for lunch, he follows the sounds of loud, off-key singing to the nursery, to find his husband directing paintbrushes with his wand as he butchers something or other by the_ Spirits of ‘35 _. Three of the walls are already a soft, sunlight-yellow.  
  
Creeping up on Xander, Harry pounces, wrapping one possessive, protective arm around Xander’s middle and hauling his yelping love back into his arms for an embrace and a kiss behind the ear. His other arm he brings forward and Xander laughs a little, taking the posies Harry’d brought home with him.  
  
“They’re lovely,” Xander says, sounding flustered and pleased.  
  
“Mm . . . Pomona says ‘hello,’ by the way,’” Harry adds, lightly biting his way down Xander’s neck, his now flowers-free hand seeking out the gentle curve of Xander’s abdomen. “How’s my family doing?”  
  
“Except for a little heartburn, we’re doing fine,” Xander reassures his husband, letting himself be swayed in Harry’s arms.  
  
“Heartburn, eh?” Harry noses the junction where jaw and throat meet. “James and Lily must not like what their daddy’s been eating. Or drinking. Have you been sneaking coffee?”  
  
“Nope. Honest Injun.” Xander leans back in Harry’s arms. “As rotten as my mood has been lately, you have to ask if I’m still on the bean?”  
  
“Good point. Oi!” Harry laughs in the wake of getting his arm whapped by Xander. And with the flowers he’d brought home, nonetheless.  
  
“So what brings you home in the middle of the day? Was there a half-day or something that you didn’t know about?” Xander asks, straightening out the now-askew flowers, and Harry chuckles lowly, pushing his intentions against Xander’s arse, and getting a soft:_ Ohhh, I see _, in response.  
  
“Been thinking about you all bloody morning. Been driving myself absolutely mad,” Harry rumbles, grinding himself against the warm curve of Xander’s perfect arse, his hands coming around to undo Xander’s fly.  
  
“Baby—I’m covered in paint and all . . . bloated and gross, today. . . .”  
  
“You’re _ beautiful, _” Harry whispers heavily, pushing Xander’s jeans down till they fall down. They’re shortly followed by Xander’s underwear. “So beautiful, love . . . let me show you. . . .”  
  
“Oh, Harry,” Xander breathes as Harry takes him in hand reverently, his other hand still resting on Xander’s abdomen. “Yes . . . please, yes. . . .”  
  
Less than a minute later, two paintbrushes drop to the hardwood floors, along with Xander’s wand, and the nursery doesn’t get finished till well after an _ extremely _disheveled Harry—still being kissed and fondled by a very happy, still amorous Xander—goes running out the door of their cottage, and up the road through Hogsmeade, toward his responsibilities, for which he’s rather late. . . .  
  
But he doesn’t particularly care.  
  
_ If this  _is_  a dream . . . then by all that I hold dear, let it never end, _he thinks grinning, glowing, and for the first time in his life, perfectly, utterly content._ Let me live and die never knowing it could’ve been any different than this. Just . . .  _this. . . .  
  
His feet barely touch the ground the rest of the way to Hogwarts._

 

 

*

  
  
It’s been nearly ten minutes since Harry Potter’s body . . . died . . . and Charlie’s been sitting quietly in his chair, which he’d moved to the space between the Harry’s and Xander’s cubcles. He’s been waiting breathlessly, his gaze torn between his brother-in-law and his husband, hoping to see at least one of them twitch and start to breathe.  
  
But for the past few minutes, Willow and Tara have been speaking to each other in hushed tones too soft for him to make out. Finally, Charlie, though wary of breaking the near-silence, has to know what the bloody hell is going on.  
  
What’s gone  _wrong_.  
  
“What? What is it?” Charlie demands worriedly, looking between Willow and Tara. In his arms, Jakob’s starting to fret once more. “Is Harry . . . okay? You know . . . considering?”  
  
Willow looks at Harry before looking at Charlie, her face even paler than it had been, and creased with worry.  
  
“I’m . . . afraid not, Charlie,” Willow looks back down at Harry’s still body, putting a gentle hand on his forehead and taking a deep, steadying breath. “From what I can tell . . . Harry Potter is . . .  _crossing over_  completely— _willingly_  . . . and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.”


	32. Paradise, Lost. Paradise Regained

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Once again . . . one man’s tragic loss is another man’s spectacular gain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes/Warnings: Canon compliant for both ‘verses. M-Preg. Major character death mentioned. Set post-Chosen by about eleven years, and post DH/e by ten years (I fiddled with timelines a bit). Spoilers for BtVS “Chosen” and DH/e.  
> Disclaimer: Theirs.
> 
> Further note: Still having formatting problems, as regards the italics. Most of the fic is supposed to be IN ITALICS, yet the italics randomly shut off, then back on. Can't seem to fix it. Sorry. For proper formatting, see here:
> 
> http://beetle-comma-the.dreamwidth.org/222730.html
> 
> or
> 
> http://users.livejournal.com/_beetle_/225689.html

“What do you mean . . .  _crossing over completely? Willingly?_ ”  
  
Willow and Tara glance at each other again then back at Charlie, Tara biting her lip. But Willow merely sighs and grimaces. “What that means for Harry—and incidentally, for Xander—is that they’re not going to be leaving the Heaven-dimension they’re in. Whatever they’re experiencing there is making them happy enough that they’re not fighting to come back. At all.”  
  
Horrified, Charlie shakes his head. “But—Harry  _went in_  to bring Xander  _out_! Bring Xander back to me and Jake! Did he just forget that, or is his afterlife so wonderful, so bloody brilliant that he just doesn’t care about what he promised?”  
  
“He’s gotten the thing he wants most, Charlie. It’s no more or less complicated than that,” Tara says softly, her eyes dark and dove-like in their terrible compassion. “He’s in the right dimension, we know that. He’s in the same place Xander is. But whatever he’s found there is making him so happy, it may have eclipsed his life on Earth. Even if he remembers, he m-may be . . . trading up, in his mind.”  
  
Shaking his head again, Charlie can’t even imagine that. This life, to his way of thinking, is—or _was_ —all the Heaven he’d wanted. He’d had a loving mate and the anticipation of starting a family. What could Harry Potter have possibly found that could be better than that which he already has? What—and in  _Xander’s_  afterlife—could possibly make him abandon the life he already has? What—  
  
Suddenly, Charlie’s gone cold.  
  
Then, grim as Harry Potter ever was, he’s standing up and handing the baby, who’s been sleeping surprisingly soundly since Harry’s death, to Tara, who takes him, looking surprised.  
  
“I want you two to prepare that spell-potion thing again and send me after him—after  _them_ ,” he says tersely, kicking off his shoes and unbuttoning the first buton of his rumpled plaid shirt. “Send me in.”  
  
“No.”  
  
Charlie blinks at Willow, who must be wearing what Xander had told him was her  _Resolve-Face_. It is, indeed, fraught with Resolve . . . but Charlie’s got no time for it.  
  
“—already killed the darling of the Wizarding world. I’m not killing his brother-in-law, too. As it is, Tara and I’ll have a fine time keeping our asses out of Azkabhan!” she’s saying, her eyes wide and a little angry. And Charlie understands—or would, if he could think beyond Xander—but he can’t afford to care at the moment. He just needs to  _get there_.  
  
“Listen, Willow, Tara. I know you’ve risked so much, doing what you’ve already done. But it turns out the wrong person went in, after all, don’t you see?” Charlie sits tailor-style on the floor between Xander’s and Harry’s beds and gazes intently up at the two witches limned in brightening sunlight. The day’s wearing on. “I know what Harry found in Xander’s afterlife that’s convinced him to stay. He’s found  _Xander_.”  
  
Willow and Tara frown. “But th-that’s a good thing, right?”  
  
Charlie snorts. “Not when Harry’s idea of Heaven is the man that we both love enough to die for. And he went and actually  _did so_  . . . right now, Harry Potter’s in paradise, free and untethered to anyone. He’s found a Xander who’s also in the same state. And now . . . they’re being free and untethered together, if Harry’s got his way. Do you understand, now?” His gaze ping-pongs back and forth between the dawning realization in their eyes.  
  
“You m-mean—”  
  
“Harry doesn’t just  _love_  Xander, he’s  _in love with_  Xander. Oh, boy,” Willow says, letting out a breath and sitting on the edge of Harry’s bed. “Oh,  _crap_.” She looks down at Charlie. “I think we sent the wrong person in.”  
  
“Yes.” Charlie nods, and Willow laughs ruefully, throwing up her hands.  
  
“Nice going, Willow. You killed Harry Potter trying to bring your best friend back from the dead. This is even better than when you brought Buffy kicking and screaming back from  _her_  paradise. Totally bitchin’ move, Rosenberg.”  
  
“You didn’t know—” Tara begins gently, and Willow laughs again.  
  
“Either time, it turns out. But I just went and did, anyway. I pulled Buffy out of the ground when she’d wanted nothing more than to stay. If I try to do that now to Harry and Xander—” Willow looks at Charlie soberly. “Our friend Buffy died—a bunch of times, actually—but one time, I brought her back after several months. Several months in Heaven . . . she was so wrecked, so changed, so . . . miserable. Earth was  _Hell_  for her. She spent the better part of a year wanting nothing more than to be dead again. I can’t, in good conscience, do that to another best friend.”  
  
“Then let  _me_  do it.” Charlie puts a hand over his heart. The beat there feels the same as ever, slow and strong, but he knows it’s not as strong as it was when Xander was still alive. Not as steady and sure. “Let me go and remind Xander of the life we have here, the joy that waits for him.”  
  
Willow is the one to shake her head, now. “No offense, Charlie, but what if . . . what if Xander’s happier where he is now? What if his and Harry’s afterlives together are . . .  _his_  idea of paradise, as well?”  
  
Charlie hangs his head, swallowing. “Then I’ll leave him be, and come back here to take care of my son. I promised Jake that I’d always be here. To me, at least, those aren’t just empty words.” He wipes unwilling tears from his cheeks with rough impatience, seeming surprised by their presence. Then he’s looking up at the witches again.  
  
“No matter what happens,  _I_  won’t forget my son. And if I’m right about the person Xander is, and I  _know_  I am . . . a little reminding is all it’ll take to have him on the same page, Harry Potter or no Harry Potter.”  
  
Willow’s Resolve-Face is slowly starting to dissolve into a Considering-It face. “But . . . what about Harry Potter? How’re you gonna get  _him_  back from the afterlife? If he really wants to stay . . . nothing I do will bring him back.”  
  
 _Who says I care?_  is on the tip of Charlie’s tongue . . . then he sighs heavily.  
  
“No matter how much he’s forgotten, no matter how seductive his afterlife is, Harry Potter will always go where Xander goes.”  
  


*

  
  
__”A moment of your time, Harry Potter?”  
  
Harry, on his way out of his office, having graded the last of his students’ papers for the year on the final Friday of the year, starts, and turns, to find himself facing Firenze. He smiles, one hand covering his briefly rabbiting heart.  
  
“Scared the life out of me, Firenze! Bloody hell!” He laughs and locks his office with a word. “What can I do for you? And you should know, that if the answer is  _grade papers_ , my reply will be an unequivocal  _no_.”  
  
Firenze doesn’t smile at this small joke—his sense of humor comes and goes, and lately it’s been, indeed, gone—but takes a breath, instead, clearly girding himself.  
  
“I must speak with you on a matter of some urgency, and immediately,” he says, and without waiting to see if Harry will follow, starts off down the corridor, toward the Divination classroom.  
  
Curious, but not particularly concerned—despite the cold tingle that works its way quickly down his spine—Harry, sighing, and wondering how long this discussion will take (he’d promised to take a very pregnant, very stir-crazy Xander to dinner in Hogsmeade . . . the _Three Broomsticks_ , nothing too terribly fancy) follows.  
  
_ _

*

_  
  
Sat among all the memories of his own time in this classroom as a student, Harry waits patiently for Firenze to initiate their “important” discussion.  
  
He doesn’t have to wait long.  
  
“You must go back, Harry Potter,” Firenze says simply, his startlingly blue eyes holding Harry’s for a few moments before Harry looks away, feeling confused and . . . guilty, for some reason. “You and he have been here for long enough. You’ve seen what could have been but will never be. You’ve both tasted what few have ever gotten to taste: an alternate life. But the time allotted for that is now over, and you must go back.”  
  
Harry blinks, now just plain confused. “What?”  
  
Firenze tosses his hair slightly and swishes his tail: a sign of agitation. _ Extreme agitation _, if Harry knows centaurs. “You know of what I speak, Harry Potter, deep down in your heart of hearts. You’ve tasted part of your reward well before your time. But it’s time to go back. To_ wake up _, and spare yourself the pain that waits for you if you do not. For_ he _will not suffer his mate to be taken so easily._ He _will come, bringing with him righteous will and the memory of Earthly happiness.”  
  
Dumbstruck and gobsmacked, Harry opens his mouth to say _ what?! _once more, with emphasis on the_ huh?! _, but something else comes out, instead, something he doesn’t understand, and yet does:  
  
“Let him come, then.” Harry feels his face screwing into a snarl. “Let him come bearing all the righteousness he wants. He had his chance, and he killed it. Literally. Killed _ him _with the birth of that . . ._ child _.”  
  
Firenze shakes his head and sighs. “And would you not have done the same, Harry Potter, to tie him more firmly to you, and to perpetuate your line? _ Are you not _doing the same right now?”  
  
Harry sits back as if slapped and nearly falls off his stool. Then he’s scrambling to his feet and straightening his robe, head aching and whirling from the utter bollocks that’s been said—bollocks that he can’t even _ follow _despite responding to it.  
  
“Let him come,” he hears himself say again, grimly, in a tone he’s never used before. And certainly never with someone who didn’t have a wand pointed at him. He glances around the room—everywhere but at Firenze, who seems unusually distressed, and disappointed in him. “And let Xander decide where his heart lies. Whatever his decision, I’ll abide by it.  
  
“But he _ will _choose the life we’ve made here. He_ will _choose me, and James and Lily,” Harry adds, and turns to storm out in a swirl of robe and anger. The Severus Snape-special, as he’s always thought of it, and sworn to himself he’d never grow pompous enough to ever do. “I _know_  he will.”  
  
“What we want and what we know can sometimes become confused, one for the other, Harry Potter,” Firenze says quietly, but still quite audibly before Harry slams the door to the classroom behind himself with a resounding _boom _ _.  
  
Then he’s running through the corridors of Hogwarts, desperate to reach to the nearest Apparation point so he can get home as quickly as possible.  
  
__

*

_  
  
As soon as he gets home—eons later, it feels—he blows inside, not even shutting the front door before he’s calling for Xander.  
  
His heart rises into his throat when he doesn’t receive an immediate answer, and he bolts up the stairs, to their bedroom or the nursery, Xander’s usual haunts isnce he entered what Medi-witch Carlysle calls the “nesting” stage of the pregnancy.  
  
The nursery’s empty, but for the furniture—twin bassinets, twin changing tables, twin everything, painted in cute balloons and animals and children, all in happy, bright colors . . . all done by Xander—so he checks the bedroom next, and finds there his husband, fast asleep on his side in bed, facing the door. One hand is curled under his cheek, the other is resting on his bathrobe-covered stomach. There’s a small smile on his face . . . so sweet and serene, Harry wonders what he’s dreaming about. In fact, he’s tempted to use Legilimency to find out. . . .  
  
Thankfully, he almost immediately discards the idea as wrong. Xander’s private thoughts and dreams are his own, and Harry may be insecure, but he’s not quite _ that _insecure.  
  
But seeing him this way . . . by Merlin, nearly six months into the pregnancy, and Xander’s never been more beautiful. Never been more of a mystery. A pleasant, perplexing—occasionally infuriating—puzzle that Harry’s keen to solve, and somehow no closer to solving than he’d been when they were fifteen, and he’d been too shit-scared to simply discard the Patronus lesson, turn the other boy to face him, and _ kiss _him like he_ deserved _to be kissed.  
  
Shrugging off his robe and toeing off his shoes, Harry quietly crosses their bedroom and slides into bed behind Xander, pulling his husband close and into his arms. His hand covers the one on Xander’s stomach. No movement at the moment, but the twins have, since their first flurry of kicks, been rather energetic, on the whole. Something Xander seems to enjoy blaming on Harry.  
  
Smiling, Harry kisses Xander’s shoulder and Xander, who’d been stirring just a bit, sighs and takes a slightly deeper breath.  
  
“Not now, baby . . . my husband’ll be home at any minute,” he yawns.  
  
“Very funny,” Harry murmurs, smiling and pressing another kiss behind Xander’s ear. “Didn’t mean to wake you, love.”  
  
“Hmm . . . just as well that you did. I’ve been sleeping so much, lately, we should probably name the twins Winkin’ and Blinkin’. And I’ll be Nod.” Xander chuckles sleepily, snuggling back into Harry’s body with a happy little sound.  
  
“But if you’re tired, you _ should _sleep. Remember what Medi-witch Carlysle said. . . .”  
  
“Yeah, yeah . . . don’t tire myself out or I’ll be put on bed rest for the rest of the pregnancy.” Xander snorts. “Like that’s some kinda threat.”  
  
“Not a threat. Professional concern.” Harry sighs, squeezing Xander tight for a few moments. “You try to do too much, without taking into consideration the fact that this pregnancy is going to be draining you increasingly as the birth nears. Both physically and mystically.”  
  
Yawning again, Xander grumbles. “I don’t do _ too much _. I barely do anything, anymore but stay home, garden, and decorate this cottage. And peruse_ Witch Weekly _to look for new and creative ways to poison us both.”  
  
Harry grins against Xander’s soft, sable hair. It smells faintly of coconut. “Mm, you haven’t poisoned us in at least two years.”  
  
“Exactly! I’m falling behind!”  
  
Laughing, Harry rolls them over, till he’s looking down into Xander’s happy, sleepy eyes. He gives in to the urge to taste that sweet, gentle smile for a few moments. “Maybe that’s the way I like you, you know? Pretty little househusband, sat at home, waiting—barefoot and pregnant, with a hot, barely edible meal already on the table—for me to return. . . .”  
  
“Oooh, you silver-tongued devil, you,” Xander murmurs on his lips. “Keep this up and I might get rid of that other guy I’m seeing and make _ you _my number one fella.”  
  
“Well, should you choose to dump _ that _poor plank, I won’t lie and say I’ll be sad about it.” Harry kisses Xander again, with less sentiment and more intent. Xander moans and wraps his arms about Harry’s neck in a warm embrace as Harry unbelts the red bathrobe and pushes it open. His hand rests again on Xander’s stomach for several seconds, before traveling lower, to take him in hand.  
  
Xander makes a breathy sound low in his throat and arches up into Harry’s touch, then laughs into the kiss.  
  
“What?” Harry asks, leaning down to nuzzle Xander’s neck—the shortest way to Xander’s libido is, strangely, his neck . . . especially his jugular, which is where Harry lingers, licking and biting the skin over the artery there till Xander’s making breathy sounds _ high _in his throat and thrashing just a bit. “What’s so bloody funny?”  
  
“Not funny, just . . . _ oh, God, Harry _. . . we’re not gonna make it to dinner in Hogsmeade, are we?”  
  
“Reservation’s not for at least another hour. . . .”  
  
“I don’t think this one’s gonna be a quickie.”  
  
“Hmm . . . you’re right. I don’t have to rush back to the school for a next class or teacher’s meeting.” Harry snorts, brushing his thumb across the head of Xander’s prick just for the strangled, helpless noise it wrings from Xander every time. “That means I can take my time with you . . . unless you’d rather go to the _ Three Broomsticks _, and—”  
  
“We can go there, anytime, Harry. You’re only gonna be able to fuck me for another two weeks and three days. Let’s not waste an opportunity,” Xander breathes, and Harry grins again, looking into Xander’s eyes and seeing nothing there but happiness, happiness—horniness, of course—happiness.  
  
“I love you, Aleksander Potter,” he whispers solemnly, but teasing several featherlight kisses from Xander’s willing lips, and tasting, as always, that addictive sweetness. Surely enough, several teasing kisses become deeper, lingering ones that don’t pause until Xander’s somehow got his hand into Harry’s trousers and pants. “Merlin, but I love you!”  
  
“And I love you.” Xander’s hand is none-too-gentle with Harry’s prick or bollocks, but then, he’s always instinctively known what Harry needs and when—even better than Harry does. And he’s always given it to him with such a wondering anticipation and _ enjoyment of _ _those things that amazes Harry, and makes him feel that, in the lottery that is life, despite the loss of his parents, of other people that he’s loved, and the horror that was the War and Voldemort . . . despite all that, he’s won some ultimate lottery.  
  
And there, in Xander’s arms—in Xander’s body, the lives of their children ticking strongly under his protective palm—his face buried in Xander’s shoulder to stifle unlovely grunts of exertion as he pumps his body forward and back in desperate (none-too-gentle) thrusts, he forgets everything: what Firenze had said earlier, and his own replies. He submerges himself stubbornly into this life, this beautiful, domestic life.  
  
But at the back of his brain, where a quiet, older, grimmer . . . almost mercenary voice has always lived, Harry Potter silently prepares for another war.  
  
__

*

_  
  
Xander Potter levers his pregnant body out of bed just after dawn on Saturday morning, having eased himself out from Harry’s possessive embrace. He pulls on his red bathrobe, and stretches.  
  
Shutting off their alarm off—this is one morning Harry Potter _ will _sleep in, whether he means to or not. He’s been running himself ragged so close to the end of the school year, as usual, and since this weekend features no staff-meetings or tutoring sessions or detentions that Xander knows about, he plans to let his husband sleep for as long as he needs to—he makes his way out into the hall.  
  
On his way to the stairs, themselves not such a far trip, Xander takes a detour into the nursery, smiling.  
  
He runs gentle, anticipatory hands over whatever his eye falls upon. There’s two of everything, with the exception of the cherrywood rocking chair by the window—a Christmas gift from Charles Weasley, both surprising and well-received—and when Xander gets to it, as usual, he can’t help but sit in it. . . .  
  
. . . as usual, he falls asleep in it, and doesn’t awaken till sometime later. Dawn has become mid-morning, and from the sound of the snores coming from their bedroom, Harry’s still fast asleep.  
  
_ Well, the least I could do would be to burn him something for breakfast. Or brunch, _Xander thinks, yawning and chuckling a little. Then starting as a brisk, loud knock at the door sounds.  
  
“Aaaaand that’d be what woke me, in the first place,” he mutters wryly, heaving himself out of the too-comfortable-chair.  
  
A quick waddle down the staircase later, and Xander is trying to get to whomever it is before they start knocking again and wake Harry. But the knock sounds again just before he whips the door open.  
  
“Please, it’s early and my husband’s still asle—oh!” Xander’s annoyed but polite smile turns into a real smile when he sees who’s been knocking. “Hello, Charles! This is a surprise! But a good one—how are y—”  
  
And that’s as far as Xander gets before a very disheveled, haunted, somehow _ older _-looking Charles Weasley steps forward, making the most desperately yearning sound Xander’s ever heard, and pulls him into a tight embrace that feels, for a moment, as right and familiar as one of Harry’s. . . .  
  
“Xand, Xand,” Charles is breathing—almost sobbing—in Xander’s ear then leaning back to look at him for long moments during which Xander’s too gobstruck to do anything but blink. At least until Charles tries to kiss him. And not at _ all _in a brotherly way.  
  
“Charles—what’re you _ doing _?!” Xander demands, putting his hands on Charles’ chest and pushing him back—or trying to. Charles is a big man, and a strong one, and when he doesn’t want to budge, apparently, the likes of Xander Potter ain’t gonna budge him.  
  
Instead, he stares down into Xander’s eyes as if searching for something in them. Something he doesn’t find, for his broad, plaid-covered shoulders sag and he looks down, shaking his head.  
  
“They were right. You _ don’t _remember,” he says, sounding devastated. But when he looks up again into a horrified Xander’s eyes, that devastation firms into determination. “No matter. I’ll_ make _you remember.”  
  
Then Charles is reaching up to caress Xander’s face more softly than anyone ever has, save Harry. “Love . . . please . . . _ try _to remember who you are and what happened. Why you’re_ here _, in this place. Try to remember. . . .” then the eyes that’d been gazing so earnestly, so pleadingly into Xander’s that for a few moments—a few moments only—he’d felt a strange sort of familiarity steal over him . . . then those eyes are darting over Xander’s right shoulder. They narrow accusingly.  
  
But Xander, still under the lassitude of that feeling of familiarity, sways toward Charlie. “R-remember _ what _, Charles?” Slips out on a gently exhaled breath.  
  
“It’s _ Charlie _ _. . . and remember that . . . you love me,” Charlie says firmly, his narrowed eyes still staring beyond Xander’s right shoulder. Until they tick back to Xander’s and soften. “Remember that you love me . . . and our son.”  
  
__

*

_  
  
“Step away from him, Xander. Please.”  
  
Harry tries to speak as calmly, as un-commandingly as he can—nothing drives Xander in the opposite direction faster than a _ command _—even though his drawn wand belies that calmness.  
  
The knocking on the door had woken him, pitching him out of a strange dream into reality between one snore and the deep, waking breath that followed it. He’d had a very bad feeling, indeed. His capital-I Instincts, which had been mostly silent since the end of the War, had suddenly been shrilling at him to _ find Xander _.  
  
Who most definitely was not still abed.  
  
“_ Accio _Harry’s wand.” Harry was up and out of bed, striding naked into the hall, before the words finished falling from his lips. Then his hand was clenched tight around his wand as he padded quietly down the hallway and stairs.  
  
Now, he stares at this disturbing tableau—Xander in _ Charlie Weasley’s _arms; Charlie Wesaley looking twenty years older at least and very much worse for wear . . . except for his eyes. Those seem to burn as he looks at Xander. That burn changes, however, when he glances at Harry.  
  
“Our _ son _? Charles—_ we _don’t have a son,” Xander is saying in that dreamy, almost . . ._ doubtful _voice that gnaws at Harry’s insides like a ferret at a carrot stick. “_ Harry and I _—”  
  
“There _ is _no_ you and Harry _, is there, Harry?” Charlie’s burning, righteous eyes tick to Harry’s once more, and it’s a struggle not to look away. Even more of a struggle not to raise his wand.  
  
Charlie’s hands—on Xander’s shoulders, still, and Xander’s still gazing up into Charlie’s face in that dreamy, absent fashion—squeeze gently, and he pulls Xander closer, holding Xander’s dark-light gaze once more.  
  
“Love . . . look at me and remember . . . I’m the man who loves you.”  
  
“No . . . no, Harry’s the one who—”  
  
“That’s right. Harry _ is _the one who,” Harry says firmly, continuing his descent. When he reaches the last step, he raises his wand, pointing it first at Charlie, who snorts.  
  
“I’m wandless, here. I didn’t come to Duel, but to reclaim my husband,” he says, seeming fantastically unafraid of anything Harry might be capable of. At least until the wand swings toward Xander’s back. “Wait, no, don’t—!”  
  
“_ Accio _Harry Potter’s husband.”  
  
A second later, Harry’s arms are closing around Xander as protectively and possessively as they ever have. In them, Xander’s shaking and shivering.  
  
“Baby—what’s going on?” he asks hesitantly, sounding like a man trying to wake from a deep sleep. Harry doesn’t know, instinctively, whether this is a good or bad thing. And that old, cold voice in the back of his head—in the dark, silent well of his anxious heart—isn’t offering any further suggestions. “I feel . . . weird. . . .”  
  
“It’ll be alright, love,” both Harry and Charlie respond, then glare at each other. Then Harry’s kissing Xander’s shoulder, murmuring _ Somnus Profunde _. When Xander sags in his arms, Harry carefully lowers his deeply asleep husband to the floor.  
  
“It’s his decision to make, Harry,” Charlie says finally, stepping into the cottage proper and closing the door behind him. Harry brushes Xander’s hair out of his face. Formless anxiety hollows him from the inside out as he watches the man he loves sleep with a small frown still on his face. “You can’t keep him in darkness forever.”  
  
“It’s actually been rather bright, here,” Harry quips, standing up once more and stepping over Xander’s sleeping body, toward Charlie. “Or was, till you showed up. And I don’t know what you think you’re doing, coming here trying to steal my husband, Charles Weasley, but I do _ not _appreciate—”  
  
“He was my husband first. And still is,” Charlie interrupts to say, quietly, but with a weight that Harry can’t quite ignore, despite the insanity of what’s coming out of Charlie’s normally rational mouth. “We have a son together, back on Earth. A son who needs _ both _his fathers.”  
  
Harry can only goggle for a bit, then laugh. “You’ve gone completely ‘round the twist!”  
  
Charlie actually smiles now. “I can see why it’d behoove you to think that, and keep thinking it. But deep down, you know what I’m saying is right and true. And that what you’re doing here, now, is wrong. And that this life is false.”  
  
“Since when is living my life with my husband and our children wrong and false?” Harry demands, his wand coming up when Charlie’s hand goes up in a silencing gesture.  
  
“But you’re _ not _.” Charlie’s glaring, again. “You’re not living_ your _life. You’re living_ my _life, with_ my _husband. And you’re keeping him from the child we created out of love, and nurtured for most of a year. A child that we went through the Forbidden Forest for—bloody bargained with unicorns for—or don’t you remember that, either?”  
  
Harry’s shaking his head in negation. Of _ course _, he is. Everything Charlie’s saying is completely mental. But that doesn’t make what Charlie’s continuing to say any less audible.  
  
“You _ had _your own chance at a family—with my sister, remember? Had three children with her, and you_ wasted _that life—the both of you. You off at the Ministry and the DMLE doing Merlin knows what, her off playing Quidditch most of the time . . . you both_ wasted _that time. Missed out on the children you_ already have. _James, and Al, and Lily. Remember? No, of course, you don’t. You never do, when they’re not in front of you.” Charlie snorts, shaking his own head. “You’re a great man, Harry Potter. A_ good _man. But you’re a bloody_ awful _father, absent and emotionally distant. And you’re a prick of a husband, cold and impossible to please. If I thought for one instant that you could do better by Xander and these . . . afterlife-children you’ve made with him, than you have by my sister and her children, I’d walk out of this dimension and not look back. But you_ can’t _. It’s not_ in you _to be better than what you are.”  
  
And with that, Charlie closes the distance between them, and stares down into Harry’s eyes steadily, intently. Stares until Harry looks away, mouth twisting into a thin, bitter line.  
  
“I _ can _be better. Here, in_ this life _, I_ am _better,” he says quietly, and it’s as if he’s talking to Firenze again: his mouth has run off with his brain, making him say things he doesn’t understand and surely can’t honestly believe.  
  
“Maybe,” Charlie says, his heavy hand settling quite suddenly on Harry’s shoulder. “But you can’t be better with _ my husband _. I’m sorry. I know how you feel for him. But you can’t have him. Find someone else, if you can’t make it work with Gin.”  
  
Harry looks up, scowling, tears in his eyes thick enough to blur Charlie Weasley even further than a dark area and no glasses have.  
  
“I _ died _for him,” Harry grits out.  
  
“And I’m willing to live for him. Him and our son,” Charlie replies, and Harry rolls his eyes.  
  
“Ah, yes, your precious _ Jake _.” A rueful laugh that Harry’s never heard from himself, though it feels startlingly familiar. As if he’s been laughing such awful laughs his whole life. “Shall I tell you just who your precious child, your_ Bright Child _really is? Shall I tell you whose soul they recycled and shoved into that tiny body?”  
  
Charlie merely gazes at him, seeming disappointed, but otherwise unmoved. “You can, if it’ll make you feel better—feel as if you’ve gotten back at me. But I don’t care who Jake _ was. Now _, he’s my son. He’s_ Xander’s _son.”  
  
“He’s Severus-bloody-Snape!” Harry blurts out, wincing even before Charlie frowns. “Your child wasn’t born out of love, but out of necessity. The world _ needs _Snape back, for whatever reason. Needs someone with his particular . . . talents. Whoever decides these things chose you and Xander for the duty of mummy and daddy. Only it threw away mummy after it was done with him, didn’t it?_ The Man Without a Future _, indeed.” Shoulders sagging wearily, Harry presses the heels of his palms to his eyes till he sees bright colors explode on the backs of his stinging lids. “Is that what you’d take him back to? To a world that’s cast him off not once, but_ twice _? That doesn’t give a_ fuck _about him—at least not enough to keep him?”  
  
Charlie’s hand slides off of Harry’s shoulder and he sighs.  
  
Then, he’s stepping past Harry and kneeling at Xander’s side.  
  
“I love him,” Harry says wearily. “More than anything. More than James, and Albus, and Lily, even. More than the children Xander carries even now. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for him, nothing I wouldn’t give him or give up for him.”  
  
“Then give him back his life. The one that was so disastrously interrupted. Give him the gift of_ time _with the child that he loved enough to die for, and who loves him.”  
  
Harry snorts again. “Snape’s never loved anyone but himself. And my mother.” _ And perhaps, as time went on, Albus Dumbledore. _  
  
“Perhaps. But that was a different life, and he was a different person, then. Just as you’re different here, in this place and life than you were in the old one.” Charlie’s big hand suddenly closes gently around Harry’s own and Harry looks down, tears rolling down his pale cheeks.  
  
Charlie’s still gazing at Xander, and stroking his cheek so, so softly. Just the way Harry would stroke it.  
  
Harry opens his mouth to say—he doesn’t know what. Really, it’s become almost objectively fascinating to hear what’ll come out when he does. But when he speaks, it’s around his heart, which has taken up residence in his throat. Both halves of it.  
  
“_ Finite Incantatem _ _. . . wake up, Xander. Wake up, love. . . .”  
  
__

*

_  
  
Xander opens his eyes, blinking the sleep out of them and yawning.  
  
“Baby, I just had the _ weirdest dream _,” he sighs. When he can see clearly, he sees two faces hanging over his own, both worried, one covered in hope and anticipation, the other grey with despair and loss.  
  
Before Xander can even consult his brain, his heart is sitting him up, and putting his arms around his . . . husband . . . kissing him softly, chastely, on the corner of his mouth.  
  
Kissing him good-bye.  
  
“I’m sorry,” he whispers, and the arms that’d been coming up to embrace him squeeze tight.  
  
“Don’t leave me . . . remember, you promised to never leave me,” Harry whispers back, his voice hitching. “You _ promised _.”  
  
“Harry . . . forever wasn’t mine to offer you. I just didn’t remember it then. If I had. . . .” Xander wipes at his own eyes over Harry’s prominent shoulder. “I’m sorry. My husband and son need me.”  
  
“_ I _need you!” Harry sits back to look Xander in the face. His eyes are red and utterly miserable. “Merlin, Xander . . . I_ love _you!”  
  
“I . . . I love you, too, Harry. But I can’t be with you like this.” Xander reaches out and cups Harry’s face in his hand, trying to smile and mostly succeeding. “But the time we _ did _have, here . . . I’ll never forget.”  
  
Harry’s laugh is bitter, resentful. “Yes, you will. We all will. Just like being born, again, we’ll forget the paradise that came before life interrupted. She's made quite sure of that.” He shoots a sullen, angry glare to Xander’s left. Then he turns his face away and stands up. Looks down at himself and clothes himself with one clipped word.  
  
Xander meanwhile, is shivering as rough fingertipss brush his cheek so tenderly, that he whimpers just a little.  
  
“Look at me, love.”  
  
And Xander does.  
  
Looks into plain-brown eyes that had—that _ have _ _come to mean everything to him, and he smiles. “H-heyya, sexy.”  
  
Charlie Weasley grins. “Hey, yourself, gorgeous.”  
  
Then he’s crushing Xander to him, tight-tight-tight. A second later, Xander’s doing the same, laughing and crying.  
  
__

*

_  
  
Harry Potter watches the reunited couple embrace each other tight, not speaking, only laughing and crying, for long minutes.  
  
Finally, he turns his back on them, and finds himself staring into the hallway mirror. Familiar green eyes set in familiar crow’s feet gaze back at him with absent sadness, from a face that’s weary and drained, and surrounded by silvering black hair that’s grown wild and out of any style.  
  
Harry Potter meets his own gaze—is both surprised and obscurely pleased that he can—until behind him, Xander speaks:  
  
“How’s my little man? Is he . . . is he in this place, too? Or is he still alive?”  
  
“He’s alive, Xand. Healthy and missing his da.”  
  
“His da misses him. Unh. Help me stand up, Charlie, will ya? This floor is doing my back no favors.”  
  
Harry closes his eyes for a moment, till his vision stops being blurry. When he feels that he just might pass muster, he turns to face Xander and Charlie. They’re so busy staring into each other’s eyes, it’s as if they’ve forgotten Harry’s there. So he clears his throat, and Xander, at least, looks at him. His eyes are so happy, so content, Harry can barely meet them.  
  
“I take it since both you boys came in here looking for me, you’ve got a way to get us home,” Xander says laconically, glancing between Charlie and Harry. Harry snorts.  
  
"She said you’d have to be the one to get us back. That it had to be your will to move us from one dimension to the other. If not that, then she’d keep me dead for fifteen minutes. However, I’m guessing time in this dimension moves rather faster than it does back on Earth.” Harry looks up the staircase and wonders what will happen to the nursery once they’ve gone. . . .  
  
“_ She _? She, who?” Xander’s asking, confused.  
  
“None other than Willow Rosenberg, love.” Charlie chuckles, kissing Xander on the cheek from the sound. “Or, Rosenberg-McClay, I should say. And she upped that fifteen minutes to a total of seventeen for you, Harry, and two for me . . . in the interests of me finding you both and convincing you to come back.”  
  
“_ Wills _is here?” Xander breathes shakily. Then laughs a little. “I mean_ there _?”  
  
“Alive and well and, if we don’t get back in time to cover all this up, Azkabhan-bound, along with her wife,” Harry says, turning back to the pair. Charlie’s giving him a disapproving look for such bluntness, but Xander . . . Xander isn’t even listening. He’s got his eyes closed and is murmuring something, hands clasped together, seemingly in prayer—and that’s when Harry notices something:  
  
Xander is no longer pregnant—James and Lily are. . . .  
  
_ Gone _. As if they’d never been.  
  
It breaks what’s left of Harry heart and sends him crashing to his knees even as all the light in the world, appropriately, goes out._  
  


*

  
  
Charlie’s crossed most of the way over. Now, all that’s left to do is wait another one hundred and twenty seconds to bring him and Harry back. With or without Xander.  
  
But ten seconds on, the baby wakes and starts to fret again. Loudly.  
  
In fact, the fretting is actually crying . . . deep, full-bodied crying of the kind neither Willow nor Tara can comfort, despite rocking and cooing. Helpless, they look at each other.  
  
“Here,” a scratchy, breathless voice says suddenly, and they look over to their right, jaws dropped. Xander’s rubbing his eyes and blinking in the bright sunlight. Then he’s squinting at them both, and smiling a little. “You’d better give him to me. He’s a snarky little bastard, but I think I can calm him down.”  
  
“ _Xander!_ ” Willow exclaims, rushing over to him and nearly tripping over Charlie’s twitching, formerly slumped body in her haste. Then she’s flinging herself into Xander’s arms.  
  
Xander catches her and hugs back with an  _oof!_  
  
“Heyya, Wills,” he says softly, his tears wetting the shoulder of her blouse, and she laughs, her tears wetting his hospital gown. “I missed you.”  
  
“I missed you, too,” she sniffles then leans reluctantly back out of the best hug  _ever_ , grinning. She gives Xander a big kiss on both cheeks.  
  
“Check you out, all European and shit,” Xander says, grinning, too. Then his eyes tick to Tara, who’s standing behind Willow, holding a crying Jake. His mouth makes a wide  _O_.  
  
“One of my favorite people in the world holding my  _absolute_  favorite person in the world? Best reality  _ever_!” Xander holds out his arms. “I’ll get around to hugging you, too, Tara, but for now, Jake’s not gonna shut up till I give him some attention.”  
  
“Of course,” Tara says, giggling, and stepping forward to hand Xander his son. After a moment of hesitation and a deep breath, Xander takes him.  
  
“Hey, little man,” he says quietly, leaning down to kiss Jake’s forehead. The crying stops and Jake emits a very surprised sort of  _gah!_  Xander laughs. “It’s so nice to finally see you again, too. So nice to finally  _hold_  you.”  
  
Jake lets out another brief cry, and then . . . merely stares up at Xander with wide, curious eyes.  
  
Grinning, now, Xander looks up, his eyes ticking behind Willow and Tara. When Willow glances behind her. Charlie Weasley is standing behind them, looking rather confused and amazed.  
  
“Xand,” he says, and: “You’re . . . okay?”  
  
Xander blinks. Then smiles, looking down at Jake once more. “Of course, I’m alright. Why wouldn’t I be alright?”  
  
“No reason,” a voice says from behind Charlie, and Harry Potter steps forward, elbowing Charlie as he does so, his own face vaguely confused and vaguely unhappy. “There was a slight complication during the birth and you were . . . in another brief coma. But you’ve come out of it, and you’ll be fine.”  
  
“Coma?” Xander glances at Willow and Tara then looks at Charlie, who smiles and nods quickly. Then they’re all nodding. “I see.” He leans back in the bed and Charlie rushes forward to fluff his pillows, Xander sending him a look of pure love and gratitude.  
  
“ _Coma_?” Willow mutters to Harry Potter questioningly. The auror shrugs.  
  
“You wanna be the one to tell him he was dead for nearly twelve hours, and that no less than two people had to be sent into the afterlife to get him back out?”  
  
Willow sighs. “You have a point . . . what  _happened_  in there, by the way? For a while there, you were crossing over. Like, to  _stay_. For keeps.” Green eyes search green eyes, but Harry Potter meets hers without guile and with more of that same confusion Charlie had worn just moments ago.  
  
“I . . . don’t actually remember that bit,” he says, shaking his head, as if to shake memories loose. “One moment I was here, taking my last breath, the next I was here taking my first.” He shakes his head again. “But you said it’d be like this, right? That was a condition of the spell, right? That the subject not remember the afterlife directly?”  
  
Willow nods gravely, doing her best to hide her relief. If any of Charlie’s suppositions about Harry’s feelings were right, then Willow’s forethought might’ve just saved several relationships. “I put that proviso in, myself. After last time, what Buffy went through . . . anyway, I was j-just wondering if it w-worked,” she stammers, smiling nervously. “Looks like it did!”  
  
Green eyes search green eyes again and Harry huffs, seemingly satisfied with that answer. “Well, congratulations, I suppose. Thanks for letting us be your guinea pigs.”  
  
“Any time,” Tara says brightly, stepping right over Harry’s sarcasm. The auror rolls his eyes and steps past them, toward Xander, Charlie, and Jake.  
  
“Do you think he’s really forgotten?” she asks, pulling Willow back a little from the happy couple, their child, and their hanger-on.  
  
“I do” Willow says, smiling and nodding certainly. “I think it worked. No one seems disoriented or suicidally depressed so far, and I’m gonna put that down as a strike in the  **WIN**  column.”  
  
“Mm, and nobody wins like my baby,” Tara murmurs fondly, pulling Willow against her for a hug that turns into a kiss.  
  


*

  
  
“You really are amazing with him,” Charlie says, sounding awed. “I could barely get him to quiet down, let alone stop crying completely. Look! I think he’s even smiling!”  
  
Harry Potter snorts cynically. “He’s not even twelve hours old—that’s gas.”  
  
“He’s  _my_  son, and I say it’s a smile,” Charlie says good-naturedly, and Harry rolls his eyes, but his lips twitch as if he wants to smile, too.  
  
Xander looks back down at his son, who’s staring back up at him as if mesmerized, his tiny mouth formed into a little  _O_.  
  
Closing his eyes on sudden tears, Xander hugs Jake closer to himself, humming as two of the three most important men in his life bicker over whether or not Jake had smiled or farted. The humming soon turns into singing of a lullaby that's as familiar as it is beloved:  
  
“[A-a-a, a-a-a,  
byly sobie kotki dwa.  
A-a-a, kotki dwa,  
szarobure, szarobure obydwa.  
  
Ach, śpij, kochanie,  
jesli gwiazdke z nieba chcesz - dostaniesz.  
Wszystkie dzieci, nawet źle,  
pogrążone są we śnie,  
a ty jedna tylko nie.  
  
A-a-a, a-a-a,  
byly sobie kotki dwa.  
A-a-a, kotki dwa,  
szarobure, szarobure obydwa.  
  
Ach, śpij, bo wlaśnie  
księżyc ziewa i za chwilę zaśnie.  
A gdy rano przyjdzie świt  
księzycowi będzie wstyd,  
ze on zasnąl, a nie ty.](http://www.mamalisa.com/?t=es&p=668&c=70)”  
  
When Xander’s eyes open, it’s to see Charlie and Harry staring at him in surprise.  
  
“Love . . . I didn’t know you knew . . . Polish, is it?” Charlie asks, and Harry, meanwhile, is frowning as if trying to remember something important that’s on the very tip of his brain.  
  
Xander smiles at them both, rather nervously. “Ah, uh, that? It’s, um, nothing. I just have a smattering. Enough to sing old lullabies and swear.” Then he takes up the refrain again quietly, despite having broken out in a light sweat. A quick glance at Willow and Tara shows they’re too busy making out to even notice Xander’s slip up.  
  
 _And even if they did, how would they know what I know, now? They haven’t seen me in nearly twenty years. I could’ve learned Polish anywhere,_  he thinks, sparing a moment for his poor _Uncle Jakob_ —dead, in some other dimension, at the ripe old age of thirty—and more glad than ever that he’s named his firstborn after the man.  
  
“Hmm.” Harry’s still frowning, but Charlie’s smiling, reaching out to brush Jake’s soft cheek very gently with one big index finger.  
  
“Well, wherever you learned it, Xand, it’s very pretty. And it’s working. . . .”  
  
“Of course, it’s working.” Xander grins winningly, and leans into the touch when that big index fingers brushes across his own cheek. And he looks at his son and pretends he doesn’t notice the yearning and confusion on Harry Potter’s face . . . and the knowledge of a loss that he doesn’t even remember and never will.  
  
In time, Xander hopes, he won’t have to pretend at all.  
  
In the meantime, Jake’s eyes are slipping shut. Before long, Xander’s little man is fast and deeply asleep. Even the sudden influx of Weasleys bearing gifts, with Molly at their head, a few minutes later—Poppy’s restraining arms and threats intimidating none of them into keeping down their racket and approaching only one or two at a time—doesn’t wake him. Charlie and Harry can only marvel out loud at the baby’s sudden sanguinity . . . before they apparently have the same thought and go to head off the family at the pass.  
  
“Yep,” Xander murmurs with a laugh, to the bundle of joy starting to drool and snore tiny baby snores in his arms. He kisses Jake’s forehead again. “You’re my boy, alright.”  
  


End

**Thank you so much to all of you who stuck around for this whole crazy mess. This is the end of First Impressions, but I plan on writing other loosely connected stories in this ‘verse, at the very least leading up to the Bright Child’s adventures at Hogwarts. Perhaps even expanding on them.  
  
Again, thank you for staying, and for commenting if you have. If you haven’t, now’s a pretty good time to lemme know what you think in the box below. Both barrels. I’m a big bug. I can take it.  
  
\--beetle**

**Author's Note:**

> So. That's the end. At least of _this_ story. Whaddaya wanna see next in this 'verse? I'm thinking . . . life just after Jake comes home with his parents? Or is that too much of a zoom-in?
> 
> And come squawk at me on [The Tumbles](http://beetle-ships-it-all.tumblr.com)!


End file.
